


Together, Always

by Sapphic_Futurist



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, B.A.R.F. | Binarily Augmented Retro Framing, Bucky Barnes Is a Good Bro, Developing Relationship, Fluff and Smut, Getting Together, Grief/Mourning, James "Rhodey" Rhodes is a Good Bro, M/M, Making Up, Marriage, Memories, Misunderstandings, Steve Rogers Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Superfamily, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-12 02:40:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 30,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29253096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sapphic_Futurist/pseuds/Sapphic_Futurist
Summary: He swallows hard, a prickle of tears in his eyes because this is his husband.This is Tony Stark and Steve’s husband, and Steve gets tohave this. He gets to have this for the rest of his goddamn life.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 67
Kudos: 198





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [resurrectedhippo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/resurrectedhippo/gifts).



> Hippo, my darling: I could not in good conscience submit this to your stocking when the maximum word count was set at 1k and this now tops 30k. I hope you enjoy it, and that it's everything you were hoping for in your prompt. 
> 
> For everyone who is not Hippo: This is a Hippo-esque fic. Please note the decision to tag CNTW. I have updated the tags to reflect more of the content of this story, but please, if you have concerns before reading, feel free to connect with me on Tumblr or Discord. 
> 
> A massive thank you to [Lerr](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lerr_writes_fic/profile) for her fantastic beta reading, and to [Blue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fundamentalBlue/profile) for whipping this ending into shape and reading it at least four times over. 
> 
> For resurrectedhippo's angsty prompt: Steve uses B.A.R.F. post-EG and thinks it's real. Gets stuck in a loop.
> 
> Enjoy!

Steve blinks.

“I’m sorry?”

When the confusion clears, Steve watches Tony roll his eyes and push the remaining pieces of sauce-covered shawarma around his plate. “Earth to Cap? I said: I know you’re still hungry, do you want me to order you something else?”

It takes Steve a minute to realize they're the only ones left. The team has slowly dispersed, back to whatever needs their attention most after an apocalyptic invasion of Earth. Sleep, or a shower maybe. Steve isn’t certain which one he wants more. 

Before he can answer the question, his stomach growls. 

Tony grins at him, knowing and just the slightest little bit smug. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. Hold on, big guy.”

He puts a heavy hand on Steve’s shoulder as he passes and Steve watches him go, still dumbfounded. He’s not used to losing time, if that’s what this is, and when he tries to remember saying goodbye to their teammates, he can’t.

Then again, since the moment Tony took that gasping breath and came back to them, Steve hasn’t been to think about anything but how close they came to losing him. He hasn’t been able to take his eyes off him.

It’s like he’s seeing Tony Stark in an entirely new light, even though he’s been there all along. Steve hasn’t ruled out that this may be him finally acknowledging what’s always been there. Whether he labels it attraction or not, the way Tony needles and barbs, the way he rubs against him in all the wrong ways, has a certain appeal. It’s maddening, but still Tony has been the one thing keeping him grounded since they woke him up. 

It’s in the way Tony doesn’t mince words. He doesn’t shy away from a fight just because Steve is Captain America. And as much as he hates to admit it, Steve’s initial assessment of Tony was wrong. 

It’s more than that, though. 

Tony’s beautiful, and for the first time Steve’s allowed to think that—to say it out loud in the light of day without fear.

Tony’s always been so goddamn beautiful with his ridiculous goatee and sparkling eyes. Steve holds his breath when Tony pushes him because people stopped pushing Steve after Project Rebirth. Tony sees past the muscle and the superhero mantle, and he _pushes_. 

They’d almost lost that. Steve had almost lost him, but now as he watches Tony across the shop, talking quietly with the owner, all Steve can focus on is the casual way he leans against the counter. When Tony smiles and turns on the charm, Steve’s stomach swoops all over again.

The shop owner’s face morphs into a look of mild irritation when Tony inevitably places another massive order. But then he nods and steps behind the counter to get to work. A younger woman approaches with a plastic container, pushing it towards Tony, and he thanks her with one of those dazzling smiles.

“What is that?” Steve asks when Tony returns with a broad, mischievous smile. It’s like he’s begging Steve to ask and Steve could drown in that smile. 

“Baklava.” Tony’s excitement is evidence. He drops back into the seat beside Steve, and peels back the lid with a flourish. “You’ve never tried it before, right?”

Steve shakes his head, mouth watering. “No, never.”

“Here, here,” Tony pushes the package towards him but then thinks better of it and pulls out a square. He offers it up as if Steve is a child and without thinking, Steve ducks his head and takes it. 

Honey and flakey pastry explode in his mouth at the same time he tastes the edges of Tony’s fingers, barely touching them with the tip of his tongue. 

He jerks back, eyes wide, because even in this century he knows you don’t lick your friend’s fingers. But then he catches the way Tony’s eyes darken. Tony takes a little, hitching breath and sways towards Steve like phantom hands on his shoulders are pushing Tony forward. 

Steve’s defenses are down. He’s exhausted and his thoughts feel sluggish, two steps behind the rest of him. The pang of losing Phil is lingering, sharp like a knife in his belly, but the fear of losing Tony was something different entirely.

And Steve hasn’t lost him. 

Tony is sitting right here, a hairbreadth away. His hand is still raised, and his fingertips are shiny and sticky with sugar. Steve swallows and a thick layer of honey warms him all the way down. When Tony’s eyes follow the trail, tracking the bob in his throat, the warmth explodes into desire.

Tony’s looking at Steve like he’s staring into the void and ready to fall. Steve wants to be there to catch him when he does.

“Do you like it?” Tony asks, sounding breathless.

“Yes. I—Yes.”

“Do you…” Tony trails off, his eyes flickering back up as he moves marginally closer, the tip of his tongue darting out to touch the corner of his lips.

“Yes,” Steve rushes out. “Yeah. Yes.”

Tony surges forward and kisses him, spicy and sweet, deeper than Steve would have anticipated. Tony kisses with fierce determination and confidence, like Steve already belongs to him and this is just another way of staking that claim. 

Just when Steve thinks he’s getting his bearings, tugging Tony in with a fist in the centre of his shirt, Tony’s hands go gentle along the side of his face. The pads of Tony’s thumbs brush Steve’s jaw, holding him like something precious and delicate. He licks into Steve’s mouth like he intends to swallow Steve whole, then sighs as if Steve is the sweetest thing he’s ever tasted. Sweeter than the dessert, and the only sustenance Tony needs. 

Steve leans deeper into the hot line of his body and bites at Tony’s bottom lip, crowding closer until he’s at the edge of his seat and the only logical next step is for Tony to crawl into his lap and wrap his legs around him—

He doesn’t.

Tony shoves the seat back and springs to his feet, still bowed over Steve, careful not to break the constant flurry of kisses he’s pressing against Steve’s lips before he finally pulls back, eyes blown and breathing fast.

“Yeah, that tastes really good,” Tony gets out. His face is flushed red beneath the lines of his goatee and the streaks of dirt from the battle still smeared across his cheeks.

“W-What?” Steve looks up at him, blank.

“The baklava,” Tony gestures to the forgotten desserts on the table. “It tastes good. Really good.”

“Right. Yeah, they were—it was good.”

Tony glances at the shop owner, and Steve follows his eyes after a beat, feeling like he was pushing his way through molasses, sluggish and uncertain. What had just happened? What was _currently_ happening?

“Can you package that up for us?” Tony calls across the shop just as Steve catches the shop owner’s eyes skittering away. “And if you keep what you just saw to yourself, I think you’ll find the tip will more than cover all your renovations.”

“Of course, sir. Thank you, sir.” The shop owner’s head bobs up and down as he rushes over with a bag full of hot-pressed sandwiches, more than one man could ever eat, including Steve, and sets them on the table when Tony doesn’t immediately reach for them.

Tony looked down at him, an uncertain smile playing on his lips. “You want to get out of here?”

Steve swallows, then grins up at him, watching the uncertainty melt away when Steve takes the proffered hand and lets Tony tug him to his feet.

“Absolutely.”

* * *

Steve blinks.

The elevator door chimes and opens into Tony’s magnificent penthouse suite, but Steve can’t be bothered to take in more than the path that seems to lead towards a bedroom. Tony’s bedroom, a guest bedroom, it doesn’t matter as Steve herds Tony towards it with a firm grip on his hips.

Tony is a thunderstorm in his arms, all crackling electricity and energy as his hands explore his jaw, his throat, slipping down to try and skirt underneath his armour and tug it off. His usually deft fingers catch on the buckles and folds and Tony growls against his mouth, breaking the kiss to glare at Steve’s uniform.

“Get this off. Right now. Fuck’s sake, Steve.”

Steve just laughs, shaking his head as he reaches for the catches and pries the shirt off, Tony’s fingers following soon after in a searing trail up from his stomach to his chest.

A thumb flicks over one of his nipples, and Steve jerks into him, chasing after his mouth. “I thought you helped design this?”

“Coulson designed it,” Tony corrects. “But I’m going to improve it. First things first, no goddamn buckles. And tighter pants.”

Steve kisses him again, drawing him back in and exploring the depths of his mouth. He’s finding his footing, and kissing Tony becomes more and more like their verbal sparring—hot flames meeting fresh accelerant and bursting into a bonfire of desire so fierce it rushes south and leaves Steve twitching and hard in his pants.

“Tony, _God_ ,” Steve groans, sliding his hands under the Black Sabbath t-shirt to press his fingertips into the fine muscles of Tony’s lower back. Tony gets his number quick enough, tweaking his nipple again and teasing him, rolling it between his fingers until Steve can feel himself flush, imagining all the things Tony can do with his hands. 

Those masterful, practiced hands.

“Christ, Cap,” Tony mutters between kisses, nipping at his lips. “And here I thought you hated me.”

“You’re the most infuriating person I’ve ever met.” Steve gives him a firm shove backwards into the bedroom. Tony stumbles through a step then grins up at him as he draws in close again, magnetic and enticing. “And the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen.”

With a bright laugh, Tony’s hands skirt around the edge of Steve’s uniform pants but Steve holds him off, making quick work of his t-shirt and pausing to admire the warm glow of the arc reactor in his chest.

“Flatterer. The history books all say you weren’t any good with the dames. Guess they were wrong.”

“They weren’t.” Steve spins Tony around so he can drop down onto the bed and tug Tony into his lap. Strong, thick thighs wrap around his waist, and Steve knows he’s already done for, descending headlong into the revelation that is Tony Stark on top of him, all around him.

When he rolls his hips up, quick and dirty, Tony is hard against him, and he groans, dropping kisses wherever he can reach with Tony’s hands in his hair. “The fellas though…”

Tony licked a stripe up his throat and breathes hot in his ear. “You’re just full of surprises, Steve. I like that, and I’m going to figure out every—single—one.”

Hot kisses punctuate each word before Tony nips at his earlobe, and a hand drifts down to grip him through his pants, squeezing him with a firm grip until Steve’s gasping and shoving his hands down the back of Tony’s jeans to draw him in. They fall into an urgent, desperate rhythm with Tony’s breath ghosting over his skin, and Steve can’t remember a day in his life better than this moment, right here.

As Tony curls impossibly closer, goading him and pressing little promises to take him apart into his chest, Steve lets it all sweep him away.

“Bring it on, Stark.”

* * *

Steve blinks.

Tony is pinned underneath him, breathing hard, grinning up at him like he’s somehow won their little game. Which isn’t how he should be looking at him, because this is the third time Steve’s pinned him in as many minutes. But Tony just keeps beaming, like sweat isn’t dripping off Steve’s forehead and onto his chest, and there isn’t a bruise already forming on Tony’s cheek where Steve caught him with an elbow the last time Tony had him in a headlock.

“What?” Steve demands, going for disparaging, but Tony’s smile is infectious. Before Steve can help himself, he’s returning it.

“This is good, right?”

For a second, Steve’s mind fumbles. Arguably, this isn’t good at all. Tony’s hand-to-hand combat skills are sorely lacking, and one of these days someone is going to catch him outside the suit and poorly prepared to defend himself. “I don’t think I’d go that far—”

Tony huffs, bucking his hips in a delicious little slide that catches Steve off guard. He lets the motion tip him sideways, and Tony crawls on top of him, perched with his thighs bracketing his chest and rolling his eyes.

“Not the sparring, Steve. This.” He gestures between them, and then it dawns on Steve like slow boiling water.

They’ve carefully avoided the topic for weeks. Steve’s gotten enough of a sense for Tony to know that he doesn’t hand out the cards with his feelings on them, holding them close to his chest. He screams trust issues as much as Steve is certain he screams abandonment issues. 

They fuck—just fuck. Sometimes they share meals. Sometimes they watch movies, and when Tony falls asleep half in his lap up in the penthouse and Steve shifts them into his bed to spend the night, they laugh it off as an accident.

They don’t talk about it.

They haven’t talked about it.

Tony’s _talking_ about it.

“You mean—you’re talking about us?” Steve asks, careful and slow, but his heartbeat is picking up speed in his chest. His fingers flex at Tony’s hips, holding him in place astride him. “ _This_ is good.”

“Yeah, yeah, I think—it’s good, right? You’re good?”

The hope that’s been fluttering in his chest from that very first day takes flight and soars.

“Yes, Tony, it’s good,” Steve says, shaking his head as Tony beams down at him, panting. “This is more than good. This is something worth holding onto. Wouldn’t you say?”

Tony laughs and slaps a palm down on his chest. There’s a revelation in his eyes, like he’s finally fit the missing piece of an equation into place. It’s something Steve doesn’t need to hear to understand, he’d probably not be able to comprehend if he did.

This is something good. Tony wants him to know that this is something good. His nails dig into Steve’s chest through his shirt, and Steve’s eyes drop down to his mouth, a perfect row of teeth and the little laugh lines that frame his lips.

“Yeah. I’d say. I’d _definitely_ say.” Tony kisses him, and not long after, sparring on the mats turns into something else entirely.

* * *

Steve blinks.

Lying to their teammates was too easy, as Tony begged off for a series of business meetings on the East Coast. Then, a few hours later, Steve rides off on his bike towards Washington for training at the Triskelion. So much for the spies he supposedly works with.

They meet at Tony’s private airstrip a half hour later and spend the six-hour flight curled up in each other’s arms. Tony seems set on seeing how worked up Steve can get before the plane touches down, leaving him awkwardly rearranging in his jeans when Tony is hauling him up out of his seat and down the gangway.

“How would you feel about—”

“Yes,” Steve says as Tony pauses halfway down the stairs, giving him a startled look. Then he smiles, helplessly shaking his head.

“You don’t even know what I’m going to ask you.”

Steve shrugs. “Don’t need to. Whatever you want, the answer is always going to be yes.”

Maybe it’s something about the fact that they’re on vacation—that Tony wants him enough to take him away for an entire week to themselves, but Steve feels lighter than air.

The realization that he really means what he’s said settles peacefully in Steve’s stomach. No one even knows yet; they’ve been so careful to keep their relationship under wraps as they figured out if it would last. Then, for the fun of it.

But it’s quickly sinking in that Steve’s prepared to give Tony the world.

Tony’s eyes dart away but a smile tugs at his lips. “Alright then, if you’re sure.”

He shouts a quick set of directions to the driver waiting on the tarmac before calling the suit. Red and gold wrap around him, a sight Steve will never get tired of, and he resists the urge to rearrange himself _again_ because there’s something decidedly sexy about Tony surrounded by all that metal.

Like the lights against the skyline from the Tower’s penthouse windows, Tony is an intricate magnificence and the pieces of the suit fusing into place sends thrills through Steve every time.

“What are you—”

“Hang on!” Tony’s voice may be clipped and modulated but even behind the mask Steve can tell that he’s grinning. One gauntlet wraps around his wrist and Steve instinctively grabs on with the other, and then they’re rocketing into the sky.

 _Flying._ Tony is taking him flying!

Palm trees disappear like a sea of green below them, between the road grids and buildings. The clouds are close enough that Steve could reach out and touch them, and the wind is frigid against his face but the sun is high and warm. The ocean stands out against the horizon, and Tony could keep going. They could keep going forever just to see where the ocean ended at the curve of the edge of the world.

“Tony!”

Tears streak down his face and he can’t stop grinning. Tony _whoops_ in the suit, tucking an arm around Steve’s waist and hooking a leg around both of Steve’s ankles before Tony barrel rolls them through the sky. It’s Coney Island kicked up to the max, and Steve’s stomach rolls and pitches but he can’t stop smiling.

With Tony’s arms wrapped tightly around him, he can’t imagine he’d ever have a reason to stop.

When Tony finally touches down on the platform that juts out from his Malibu mansion, Steve’s legs feel like putty, and he leans against the suit, an arm still slung around Tony’s metal neck.

“How was that, Cap?” Tony pops the faceplate up, and Steve grabs him, hauling him in and kissing him stupid.

He kisses him, and keeps kissing him, until Tony has him backed up against the far wall, the suit bearing all of his weight as he wraps his legs around Tony’s hips and holds on.

“Fantastic,” Steve breathes into his mouth, calculating just how much force it might take to peel the suit off Tony piece by piece. “Let’s do it again, and you can drop me into the ocean after.”

Tony lets out a startled burst of laughter, and for a brief second Steve can see him working out all the logistics. Tony must think better of it because he kisses Steve soundly once more before setting Steve on his feet and walking along the trackpad that pulls the armour free.

“Come on, Evil Knievel, let’s get settled and I’ll take you out again later. You hungry?”

“Nah,” Steve brushes off the offer, stepping through into the mansion. If he’d thought the opulence of the penthouse was something, this was a whole different world. All open concept and horribly modern but still with something distinctly comforting about the living room. The large fireplace and comfortable seating feel like a long-awaited welcome home.

“Our stuff will be here in a bit, so what do you want to do first?” Tony leans against the island that juts out to form a half-sunken wet bar. “A tour? Dip your toes in the ocean? What?”

“I don’t care.” Steve steps back into his space, looping his arms around Tony’s waist because he really can’t stand to keep his hands off Tony. They’ve never had this much uninterrupted time together, and the possibilities feel endless. This time belongs to them. “I really don’t. We’ve got the whole week. Whatever you want, anything you want.”

“Steve.” Tony sounds like he’s choking on his name, stumbling over the syllables. “You don’t have to be so goddamn earnest about it all the time.”

“Can’t help it. You bring it out in me.”

“I think there’s something else I’d like to bring out of you.” Tony hand dips down and grips him hard on the ass, yanking him in.

Steve laughs into his mouth when Tony leans in for a kiss, carefree and happier than he’s been in a damned long time.

* * *

Steve blinks.

“Captain,” J.A.R.V.I.S. says with as much of a smirk in his voice as Steve’s ever heard. “Sir has asked me to pass along a message.”

“Of course.” Steve shifts, restless, his suitcase leaning against his leg as he waits for an appropriate amount of time to leave the parking garage and head back up to greet the team. Tony’s only just left moments earlier. They hadn’t fully thought this part of the plan through.

“He says the mission has been compromised, and you are to report to the common living room immediately.”

Steve freezes. “Oh no.”

“Indeed,” J.A.R.V.I.S. says. “If I may interject, Captain. Sir appears to be at risk of interrogation by Ms. Romanoff. I’d suggest you hurry.”

“Well, we can’t have that,” Steve mutters to himself, shaking his head, but excitement zips underneath his skin as he crosses the parking garage. The few dozen floors to the communal floor feel like hours until Steve’s stepping into the living room, his team standing around Tony in a half-circle with varying degrees of expressions, unimpressed and amused.

Natasha’s lips twitch at the corner as she thrusts a phone into Tony’s face but they all turn to Steve as he comes towards them.

“Cat’s out of the bag, Cap.” Tony quirks an eyebrow at him, deferring to Steve’s lead as if it weren’t Tony who’d asked to keep things quiet, just a little while longer. Steve steps in close, resting a hand on the dip of his back and peeks at the phone over his shoulder.

Tony leaning into him feels like permission granted and his heartbeat picks up in his chest.

“Care to explain?” Natasha asks, but the jig is already up.

Clint’s face is dissolving into a grin, and Bruce is peering over his glasses with humour in his eyes. Thor looks about ready to tackle them both to the ground, vibrating halfway out of his civilian clothing.

“No,” Tony says, at the same time Steve starts with, “Not really sure how much there is to explain.”

The photo is the two of them, soaring through the sky above Malibu. Steve is wrapped up in all of Tony, arms around his neck, legs trapped between the strong lines of the Iron Man armour. It’s nothing compared to what it could’ve been.

“Steve’s training ended earlier, and he wanted a day at the beach,” Tony says, waving them off with nonchalance.

“We thought you might say that.” Clint flops down on the couch and crosses his arms over his chest, looking like a cat rolling in the cream. “Show ‘em, Nat.”

Natasha flicks one red-painted thumb, and the next picture is a grainy image of the two of them, Steve’s swim trunks riding dangerously low on his hips and Tony in his arms. They’re kissing, the sun gleaming off their wet skin as Steve walks them out of the ocean and back up towards the mansion.

It’s a shade more damning than the first.

“Strategy, Cap?” Tony asks, teasing as he gives Steve a quick, bemused look. 

“Can’t go back now,” Steve murmurs, and Tony bites down on his smile.

“Wouldn’t want to.”

Steve looks at his team, watching the way the entire room holds its breath. He slips the hand on Tony’s back down around his waist and tugs him in, dropping his gaze to Tony’s mouth.

“We’re together,” Steve says, not taking his eyes off Tony though he’s speaking to the rest of them. Tony smiles up at him, and it feels remarkably good to claim him, here, in front of their friends. Their family. Then he adds, softer, “I’m in love with him.”

“Wait, what?” Clint coughs from the couch, jerking forward into Steve’s peripheral vision. At the same time, Tony’s eyes widen, and he takes a sharp breath.

“What did you just say?” 

It wasn’t that Steve hadn’t realized before now, but it felt right. The last week had brought clarity and solidified something Steve had already known was there all along. Maybe it was supposed to be private, or romantic, or any other way than what he’d just done now, but it felt right.

It felt so very right.

“Tony.” Steve’s fingers drifted along the edge of his shirt, tightening slightly when his face morphs from a splatter of surprise to hopeful shock. “I love you.”

Steve swallows hard, but doesn’t drop his eye, counting the seconds before Tony’s mouth is on his, kissing Steve even as he’s laughing.

“I love you, too. Fuck, Steve, of course I do.” 

* * *

Steve blinks.

He’s disoriented and in pain, clawing his way through a jungle of wires pooled on his chest and wrapping up around his cheeks. A canula tickles under his nose and of all the pain radiating through his body, he is distinctly aware of his body already working to force the IV out from his arm. The pink blots of colour on both hands suggest he’s already worked out more than one port.

The room spins and refuses to come into focus. There are flashes of the helicarrier falling from the sky and Bucky, trapped beneath the falling rubble. When he tries to help him free, Bucky’s fists pound into him and the world goes black.

Bucky hadn’t recognized him. He didn’t remember him, and he’d almost killed them both. Then… nothing. 

Steve takes a shuddering breath and starts to tug at the wires.

“Yeah, no, we’re not going to do that.” Steve jumps and jerks towards the sound of Tony’s voice, grunting at the fresh wave of pain.

He hadn’t even seen him there, tucked into the little blind spot by his head. But his vision is still swimming, and his head feels cloudy with opiates. They must’ve pumped him full of enough to put down an elephant for it to linger this way.

“Tony?” Steve rasps.

“What were you thinking?” Tony’s voice is a hiss, crawling under his skin.

Steve flinches away from him and regrets it almost immediately when Tony’s face crumbles. He scoots a bit closer in the chair next to the bed before he gets a hand on the mattress, inches it towards Steve’s. Just a light clasp of fingers, as if Tony thinks he could hurt him if he holds on too tightly.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I didn’t—they said you weren’t going to come through, Steve. They said you weren’t going to make it.”

“I’m fine.” His fingers don’t respond properly when he tries to curl them around Tony’s, twitching uselessly at his sides. Everything aches. He realizes he can’t see out of one of his eyes.

Every breath feels like shattered glass stretching through his chest cavity. Maybe this is what the shrapnel felt like in Tony’s, except he’s relatively certain that this pain is his shattered ribs, sliding around in his chest before the serum can stitch him back together.

“You are not fine.” The anger in Tony’s voice tremors just beneath the calm. “You are absolutely not fine. Are you in pain? Be honest, because they can push more pain meds if you—”

“In a few minutes,” Steve cuts him off. Tony shifts a little closer, looking at the bed as if he wants to crawl in and tug Steve into his arms. “It’s not so bad.”

“You’re a shit liar.”

“Yeah.” Steve lets himself relax back into the pillow, accepting defeat. “Do you know what happened? After I fell?”

“I was hoping you could tell me,” Tony says, frowning. “You don’t remember?”

Steve shakes his head but for some reason he realizes that’s a lie. It’s nothing he should remember, but he does, like someone’s stuck the memory into his brain and he’s seeing it through someone else’s eyes. He remembers the cold blackness of the water, but he also knows that Bucky pulled him free.

Why does he—

Tony squeezes his fingers. “They haven’t told me much. Nat and Sam, they’re—there’s something they aren’t telling me, isn’t there? Besides the obvious, that is, because I’m sure you’ll remember that you told me this was just another mission and then I find out there were _warrants_ out for you.”

Steve’s head pounds. “It was another mission. It—we weren’t expecting—”

“You said it was nothing,” Tony interrupts. The anger rises up in him, and Steve can see it behind his hard eyes. There’s fear there, so much fear, but Tony does a good job at holding it at bay. “I asked you if you needed me to come and you told me it was nothing.”

The double standard makes Steve see red. Or red specks, forming around the black fuzziness on the edge of his vision. “You said the Mandarin was nothing!”

The shouting jostles his ribs and Steve winces, nausea turning circles in his stomach.

“Steve—"

“I saw it in the paper, you know,” Steve says, quieter. Pain flashes in Tony’s eyes but he stays stubbornly silent. “You called me and said not to worry when the mansion fell into the ocean and that same afternoon the papers said you were dead. And then you didn’t answer the phone, Tony!”

“I was handling it.” Tony waves a dismissive hand and leans back in the chair. He almost crosses his arms over his chest, arms twitching back to his side as if he’d thought better of it. They all know a thing or two about hostility and open body posture. “I did handle it. I’m here, aren’t I? I’m fine.”

“Yeah, well. I was handling things here.”

Tony snorts, as dry and sarcastic as a snort can be. “Is that what we’re calling it? You want to know how many broken ribs you’ve got, Steve? Ask me. Go on, ask me how many.”

“They’ll be fine.” Even as he says it, Steve tries not to shift, biting down on the inside of his cheek as his ribs ripple beneath his skin. It feels like everything inside him is free-floating, drifting off to places it doesn’t belong like a puzzle spilled onto the floor. The serum will handle it though. It always knits and stitches him back together, and Tony _knows_ that.

Tony looks at him, defeat laced with worry and a simmer of anger like he’s just taken his emotions off the stove to cool. “You should’ve called me. We’re supposed to be a team. We’re supposed to do these things together now.”

Steve fixes him with a flat look. “I had my team on this one. I had a job to do.”

It’s the wrong thing to say.

“Bullshit!” Tony shoots to his feet, jabbing a finger in Steve’s face. It’s not until Tony’s leaning over him that Steve realizes he’s trembling. There’s something wrong, but he can’t get his finger on it, like an old memory that won’t quite come into focus.

“Bullshit. What aren’t you saying? What—” Tony cuts himself off, and his face spasms with realization but he steels himself and pushes on. “What are you hiding? Why are you hiding something from me?”

It’s one of those moments where the world slows down, and Steve can’t form a thought to save his life. They call him a master tactician; that may be true but Steve still needs time. He needs time to plan and to collect himself, but Tony has never been generous enough to spare him that decency, not since the first day they met. Tony meets him head on, walking him backwards in a head-on assault until his back is against the wall. Trapped.

Tony leans over him, and Steve searches his face. It takes every ounce of self-control not to sink deeper into the bed. Everything aches, and maybe it wouldn’t be so terrible to tell him. Maybe Tony deserves to know.

There’s something in him nagging at him that Tony will trust him if he tells him. He could tell him, hell, maybe he _should_ tell him. Tony wants to do this together. He wants them to be on the same team, and if they’re even going to have a shot at that, Steve needs to come clean.

It feels like if he doesn’t, he’s risking something more than he’s willing to bear.

“Tony—”

“If the next thing out of your mouth isn’t the truth, Steve, I swear to Tesla I’ll—”

“Sit.”

Tony jerks back, startled, and almost comically drops onto the bed beside him. The sharp movement jostles his ribs again, and Steve swears under his breath, gingerly pressing his fingers into his side.

“The mission intel was wrong. It was HYDRA. It’s been HYDRA all along and they’re S.H.I.E.L.D., Tony. Everything Peggy ever worked for—” Steve cuts himself off, that’s not the important part. “They sent in the Winter Soldier, and we weren’t ready.”

“Okay,” Tony says slowly, waiting for more.

“It’s Bucky,” Steve says, looking him right in the eye. He doesn’t waver or mince his words. He hands it over to Tony and after, he holds his breath, waiting for the fallout. “The Winter Soldier is Bucky, and I have to find him.”

* * *

Steve blinks.

“Did I miss it?” He demands, skidding to a stop between a startled Pepper and Colonel Rhodes. Through the glass he can see Tony on the table, bare from the neck down with a hospital blanket tucked around his hips. The doctors are milling around him, and he can’t get a good look at him. He can’t catch his eye.

Steve was supposed to be here long before now. Damn the hospital and their incessant discharge protocols.

He’d hit traffic in the car on the way over with Happy, who was likely still stuck riding the elevator after Steve had opted to take the stairs a few sets at a time. Everything was conspiring against him, but he’d made it. Tony was still awake, and he’d made it.

“They’re going to put him under in a few minutes. You can’t go in, Steve.” Pepper lays a hand on his arm as he starts toward the door. “It’s a sterile environment. But you can talk to him, if you want. There’s an intercom, here.”

Steve jams his thumb into the little button on a speaker box beside the window. “Hey. Hey, Tony.”

Tony smiles at him, lifting his head up with a grin so bright Steve goes warm all over. “You made it.”

“Of course, I made it. Couldn’t let my best guy go into surgery alone, could I?” Steve ignores Pepper’s affronted gasp and the light smack that lands on his bicep. He can’t take his eyes off Tony.

There’s a lingering fear in his eyes, and Steve knows he fully understands the risks. Sometime between Pepper’s surgery and Steve’s recovery, Tony had decided they were worth it, and for some reason, Steve felt confident that it would all be fine. It wasn’t a suspicion, but a definitive certainty that in a few hours, Tony would be on his way home to recover.

“Wow,” Tony says with a teasing air. “Your best guy, huh? Tell me I’m your fella next, Rogers. Really put the accent into it, too.”

Steve flushes, delighted, but chides, “ _Tony_.”

“You two are going to make sure he doesn’t tear the wallpaper off the wall, right?” Tony asks. Rhodes slaps a hand down on his shoulder, and Steve winces a little, his ribs still tender.

“We’ve got him, Tones. You just focus on pushing that shrapnel out.”

“You’ll be fine,” Pepper says gently. “And we’ll be right here when you wake up.”

Steve resists the ridiculous urge to press his hand over the glass, painfully aware of Pepper and Rhodes watching him. They care about him, and he knows this. He and Tony have been together long enough now that Tony’s friends have become his friends too, but he still has his reservations. When it’s not their team, Steve feels on edge. He wishes he didn’t, but he does. He keeps his hand to himself and drops his gaze.

“Steve.” He jerks up, and Tony is smiling at him. The doctors are waiting to push the IV, and there’s a respirator mask in the hands of the nurse nearest his head. “You remember what I told you, right? It’ll be fine because we’re together. You made it, and I’m going to be fine.”

“Tony—” Steve chokes, blinking away the tears. He can’t lose him on the table. He can’t. It isn’t even worth it. Tony could keep on living with the arc reactor, and he’s taking a risk—

But he isn’t?

Something tugs at his mind, and it’s not fully formed through when Tony gives him a little thumbs up and whispers, “Together, right?”

“Always together.” Steve says, ignoring the way that Pepper presses closer and leans her head against his shoulder. As the mask settles over his mouth, Steve brings his hand up and presses it softly against the glass

* * *

Steve blinks.

“I almost threw it in the ocean,” Tony says, resting against him. They’re in their bed at the Tower, Tony’s head pillowed against his chest. He’s shirtless, and the bandages from where the arc reactor once sat are fresh and bright white against the olive tones of his skin.

Tony tosses the arc reactor in the air, and Steve watches as it drops back down.

“Why didn’t you?”

Tony shakes his head, and the fine hairs tickle at Steve’s nipples. He tightens the arm he has wrapped around Tony’s midsection and pulls him in closer. It doesn’t matter that a few short hours later Tony was awake and smiling, or how Rhodes and Pepper had sat on either side of him and murmured constant reassurances. Until Steve had Tony in his arms again, kissing him through the daze of the anaesthesia, Steve had held his breath.

They’d made it. Another trial, another tribulation, and they’d made it through together.

“I’m not sure. Nostalgia maybe.”

“You do like old things,” Steve agrees, and Tony laughs a little, setting the colourless reactor on his bedside table before shifting deeper into the blankets.

“I do. Now sleep, old man, it’s past your bedtime.” Tony smirks at him, and Steve rolls his eyes but settles in beside him. “Lights, J.”

J.A.R.V.I.S. doesn’t reply, and the lights drift from their warm comfortable glow into sheer darkness. The abrupt blackness takes Steve’s breath away, not even a speck of light shining through the curtains.

It feels wrong. He tries to take a breath, but the cold creeps in on him out of nowhere. The room is warm and comfortable, so it must be psychosomatic but Steve can’t feel his fingertips. The ice waits to swallow him whole, dark and frigid, and reflexively, his grip tightens on Tony’s forearm.

“Tony—”

“Whoa, hey.” Tony puts a hand on his chest, propping himself up. Steve can just make him out through the darkness, but the rest of the room feels like it’s drawing in around them.

It’s smothering him.

“Hold on, I get it. Okay, damn it where is it—” Tony’s hand smacks against something hard and he curses under his breath. “There we go.”

There’s a small click, and then the room is aglow with the soft blue light of the reactor. The calm is instantaneous, chasing away the panic and welcoming in a fresh wave of embarrassment. It’s a silly thing. He’s a grown man, horrified by the dark without the nightlight that’s been living in his partner’s chest the last few months.

It almost feels like more than that. Steve knows it’s only been hours. Tony had dozed in his hospital bed with him just yesterday, and Steve had watched the glow through his shirt. But it feels like he hasn’t seen it in years.

He wants to cup his palms around it and bury his face in it until there’s nothing but blue light and the sound of the gentle hum the reactor emits.

“I didn’t even realize how much I needed it,” Steve says quietly. “It’s been a part of you for so long.”

“It’s not just you, honey.” Tony makes a little space between them, pushing the arc reactor up so it sits on the mattress between their shoulders. Tony’s gentle smile is alight, shadows dancing in the hollows of his throat.

Steve forces himself to relax, pushing the calm into the muscles that bunch and stiffen in his shoulders until he can ease back against the pillow. One of Tony’s hands tangles with his own and when he closes his eyes, the glow is still there, exactly where it should be.

“Thanks,” Steve whispers. He drifts off slowly and when he wakes the next morning, the arc reactor is pressed against his cheek.

* * *

Steve blinks.

Everything is falling to pieces around him.

There’s something he needs to say, and he should have said it weeks ago. He was doing so well, being honest, letting Tony in, doing things together, and it’s not supposed to be this way. They’re supposed to be a team and Steve’s fear feels crippling.

He could lose Tony in a heartbeat if he gets it wrong, now. He can feel it in the marrow of his bones.

“Tony? Tony, I think we need to talk.”

Steve hardly gives Nick Fury a passing glance as they cross paths outside the entrance to the Barton’s barn. One of Fury’s eyebrows quirks up at his tone, but he keeps his silent spy master observations to himself and continues up the path to the house. 

Steve should have known he’d be behind some of this. All of this. 

He presses the door open and peers inside. Tony is leaning against the Deere, not a tool in sight with the plaid shirt pulled back up over his shoulders. He looks even more ragged than when they’d fought earlier, and Steve steels himself for the worst.

Tony thinks he’s a man without secrets, and he couldn’t be more wrong. He deserves the truth, he always had. It’s not Tony’s fault he’s fallen for a man too afraid to lose him—too afraid to lose either of them—to be honest with him.

Steve’s always known his biggest secret was his own cowardice. It always has been, even when he’d fought, even when he’d committed himself to doing what was right. He’d tried to tell Tony about his parents when the helicarriers had gone down, but the words had twisted between his ribs and refused to come out. He told Tony more than he thought he ever would, but not about his parents.

There’s no excuse for it. Tony’s been by his side every step of the way.

Steve finds himself wondering if he can honestly say the same thing about himself. There’s never going to be a right moment, but as Steve takes hesitant steps towards Tony, Steve knows this is the best he’s going to get.

He’s here for a reason. They’re together, in this time and place, for a reason, and he owes Tony this. If he doesn’t tell him now, they’re bound for a path they might not come back from.

Steve sees it with alarming clarity. Now or never. “Tony?”

“Don’t,” Tony snaps without looking up, hands curling into fists at his sides. “Just—I can’t think right now. Everything is so fucked up, and I need a break, okay Steve. From all of this. I just need a minute and then you can shout at me all you like.”

“You… need a break from me?” Steve asks, quietly. 

Tony’s gaze flickers up, expression carefully neutral. “That’s not what I said. Are you—is that what you want?”

Steve’s heart clenches and he takes another step forward. “No. No, Tony, of course not.”

As much as he wants to hold him, to wrap him in his arms and forgive the last few hours, the last few days, he thinks better than reaching out for him. The anger radiates off Tony in waves. 

“Then what do you want?”

“There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you.” The words catch in his throat and he rolls his shoulders back, looking for some shred of confidence and feeling empty. “There’s no excuse, I shouldn’t have waited so long but I thought—”

Tony’s face starts to shutter, and Steve gives him a pleading look.

“It’s about your parents.”

All the blood drains out of Tony’s cheeks but once the words start, they spill out of Steve in droves. Like little stones, tumbling to the bottom of the well, all with a delayed reaction when they land.

He starts with Bucky and what they made him into, most of which Tony already knows, and Steve knows why he starts there. Maybe it’ll soften the blow, but when he gets to what Bucky’s done to his father, his mother, it’s like he’s holding Tony under water and watching him flounder. It’s as if Steve’s the one that’s taken his parents away from him.

When the disbelief crumbles into stark realization, Tony physically staggers. One of his hands shoots out to brace himself against the tractor, and he looks like he can’t catch his breath. He’s a man laid low, if Steve’s ever seen one.

“How long?” Tony croaks, eyes searching the ground as if it holds the answers. “How long have you known?”

Steve winces. “Since S.H.I.E.L.D. Since the helicarriers went down.”

Tony sucks in a breath that must taste like deceit because his face contorts and he looks like he might spit in Steve’s face. “Before the surgery, then. You let me go under—you let them put me out, not knowing if I’d make it through and you never said—”

“It wasn’t the right time, Tony!” Steve does reach for him then but Tony smacks him away. “I wanted to; I did. But if I’d told you and that was the last thing you heard—I couldn’t do that to you, not then.”

For a brief moment it almost looks as if Tony believes him.

Recognition and understanding flash across his face as he considers the timeline, but Steve’s stomach sinks when his expression darkens. “You mean you couldn’t do that to _you_. I would have known, but if I hadn’t made it, you couldn’t have handled that. It wasn’t about me at all.”

It’s a hammer to his fingertips, and Tony starts to shut him out. He closes the door where Steve can’t reach him, throws up the wall meant for everyone else. Everyone else, not Steve.

“No, that’s not—"

“What about every day after that? How many days has it been? How many _months_.”

“I was hoping—”

“Fuck you.” Tony shoves him, in his space from one blink to the next with his hands forcing against his chest. It catches Steve off guard, and he staggers back, missing a step over an uneven patch in the floorboards. “You fucking asshole.”

He wants to sink to the ground and beg Tony to believe him that he’s trying and he’s so goddamn sorry. He hadn’t meant for it to go on this long.

Tony goes to shove him, again and Steve catches his arms easily, tugging him in. “I’m sorry. Tony, please listen to me. I’m so sorry.”

“Oh, well that changes everything, doesn’t it! You’re sorry! So what? Apologies don’t bring my parents back, Steve. It doesn’t undo all the time you’ve been lying to me. It doesn’t give me back all the time I could have spent tracking down your fucking _pal_. I don’t care that you’re sorry.”

Steve tightens his grip on Tony’s wrists as he tries to jerk away.

He’s like a trapped wildcat in Steve’s arms, twisting in his grip and spitting mad. There are little streaks of fire in his eyes. The hurt is thick and palpable.

All the long-buried grief breaks the surface, and if Steve lets him go now, he’ll lose him. They can weather this. Together. If they just stick together—

This was the whole point, wasn’t it? Isn’t that why he’s here, now?

Tony wrote the playbook on pushing everyone out but not now. Not when Steve’s finally come clean and Tony needs him to stay more than ever. 

“Let me go!” Tony spits, lashing out with one of his feet, trying to knock Steve off balance.

It’s a trick Steve taught him years ago, and he lets his calf absorb the blow to avoid falling for the next rough twist. Tony growls in frustration when Steve holds fast, and for a moment they’re locked together and breathing hard. Tony’s little match for his strength and that only seems to make him flush redder. He’s shaking, digging his nails into Steve’s hands.

“I’m sorry,” Steve says. “You deserved to know and I should have told you sooner. I love you, Tony, and I’m so, so sorry.”

“ _Fuck_!” If he didn’t have a grip on Tony’s wrists, he expects Tony might slap him. He jerks at his hands again, and Steve holds fast. “My Mom. My goddamn Mom and you knew! You fucking—You knew and you didn’t say anything but you said—And you keep saying that you—Did you even mean it—"

His thoughts are a mess, and Steve sees Tony loses his grip on himself. He breaks off, and the tears forming at the corner of his eyes break free and slide down over his splotchy cheeks. For a brief second, his eyes drop down to Steve’s mouth before his jaw sets, and his face contorts into something ugly and spiteful.

“I love you,” Steve repeats. “I’m sorry. Tony, whatever you need—"

“Shut up.”

“Tony, please just—"

Tony launches forward, and their lips meet, teeth clacking against each other when Tony forces all of his rage headlong into the kiss. If Steve can even call it that.

He bites down, hard, sucking the blood from Steve’s lip before thrusting his tongue into his mouth to lick behind his teeth. Tony’s breathing goes ragged, and his hands don’t stop tugging to get away. It’s as if his body and mind are at war, and Steve is bound to be the casualty between them.

If that’s what Tony needs. Whatever he needs.

“I’m sorry,” Steve says, muffled against Tony’s mouth.

“Shut up. Just, shut the fuck up, Steve.”

Steve releases one of Tony’s hands, but he doesn’t go far. Instead of clocking him, Tony’s fingers fist in the hair at the nape of his neck and _pull._ Steve grunts into Tony’s mouth, pinning Tony between his body and the tractor, letting Tony slam back without care. It’s rough and vicious, but Tony’s nails are still biting into his flesh as if he’s out for Steve’s blood and if this is what Tony needs—

Before Steve can process what Tony’s doing, Tony is shoving at his shoulders. He’s tugging him in and pushing him away as if he can’t make up his mind before he settles on pushing him _down_. 

Steve drops to his knees with a sharp crack against the floorboards, bits of straw poking in through his jeans. Tony’s hands are in his hair at the same time Steve reaches for his belt, tearing it open and shoving his pants halfway down his thighs.

When he spares a glance up, Tony’s eyes are squeezed shut, and he looks destroyed, every little line of emotion written across his features. His dick is half-hard between his legs, wanting but weighed down with grief. It feels wrong to do this now, even when Tony shoves both hands into Steve’s hair and pulls him closer, roughly dragging his chin up. 

Tony doesn’t look like he’ll take any pleasure in it. He wonders, absently, if Steve weren’t here what escape Tony would have picked first: a bender in his shop, or the bottle.

Steve focuses on sucking him down, swallowing around the length of Tony’s cock until he’s sobbing above him, harsh but quiet as if he desperately wants to keep it all in. There’s only so much one man can take.

When Steve’s efforts aren’t enough anymore, Tony fucks into his mouth with a single-minded focus, hard enough that Steve chokes and tries to pull off. He gags, but Tony forces him back down, stealing the air from his lungs.

If this is what Tony needs him to be—an escape, a distraction, he can give that to Tony. Steve steels himself and digs his nails into Tony’s hips

With another gag, Tony thrusts in deeper, down into the hollow of Steve’s throat until he cuts off Steve’s air completely. He stays there, and just as Steve’s vision starts to blur at the edges, he pulls back, giving Steve just enough time for one gasping breath before he fucks back into the hilt. 

Tony tugs at his hair hard enough to rip it from the roots.

When he finally comes, pumping line after line of release down Steve’s throat, Tony shatters. The tears fall onto Steve’s hands, and Tony slides down the tractor, bare-assed on the dirty, old floorboards, cock limp and shining with spit between his legs.

“I’m sorry.” He sounds horrified with himself. “Steve, I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright.” The words are destroyed, a rough, sandpaper croak and Tony flinches, looking away. Steve reaches out to fold him into his arms anyway, and this time Tony lets him. “It’s alright. I’m sorry. I love you. It’s alright, sweetheart.”

The barn fills with the quiet rattle of Tony’s sobs. Eventually, he lets Steve tuck him back into his pants, and Steve wipes the drying spit off his chin before he leads Tony back up to the house.

Clint gives him a look, passing them in the foyer, but Steve shakes his head, tucking Tony closer against his chest and leading him up the stairs. As he settles him onto bed, Tony lets Steve curl around him. He feels small and vulnerable, relaxing in small increments as Steve waits, stroking soft fingers up and down his ribcage.

When it looks like Tony might say something more, Steve holds his breath, but the words don’t come. They’re swept away in the wake of a fresh set of sobs, and Steve closes his eyes. The storm comes on quickly, and he holds Tony through it until his breaths even and slow.

Steve doesn’t sleep for hours.

* * *

Steve blinks.

“You keep something like that from me again, and we’re done.”

Tony isn’t even looking at him. It’s only been days since he came clean, and Tony’s been rigid at best. They’ve been busy with the fallout from Sokovia, and though Tony comes to bed every other night, drained and exhausted; he no longer lets Steve pull him in. He lies there, stiff and visibly aching, refusing any source of comfort. 

Maybe Steve can’t be that for him right now. He hasn’t been ready to talk, so Steve’s waited. He’s been waiting for this. “I won’t.”

Tony huffs. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

“Tony. I won’t. I’m in this. Whatever you need, whatever I have to do to show you that. There’s nothing else, and there won’t ever be.”

Tony gives him a look. “Sure, whatever you say, Cap.”

“Don’t do that. Please stop trying to shut me out. Do you—should we talk about it? Whatever you want, Tony, I’ll do it. You have no idea how—”

“If you tell me how sorry you are one more time, I swear to Tesla I’ll—” Tony slaps a palm down on the worktable, head falling forward. He takes a shuddering breath, and Steve watches his fingers twitch. They’re wrapped so tightly around the edge of the worktable, the blood bleeds from his knuckles.

Steve doesn’t know what to say.

“I don’t want to talk about it. I want to do something about it, and I need you to tell me everything you know about your buddy’s whereabouts.”

“Tony, I don’t think—”

“Can you just do this for me? God—stop looking at me like I’m about to go rogue. I’m not going to hunt him down; I’m not going to kill him or something asinine like that. But I can’t do anything with all—” Tony gestures wildly at himself. “ _This_. Finding Barnes… Well, that’s something I could do. I can help you find him and maybe if he’s not a complete fucking cyborg murderbot, we can fix him. Then it’s not all for nothing, right?” Tony’s voice chips at the end but his eyes flash with a fierce warning.

“Oh, Tony.” Steve softens, but when he starts towards him Tony holds up a hand.

“Don’t do that. Just, tell me it won't be all for nothing. Tell me she didn’t die for nothing.”

Steve winces. “She didn’t. I promise, she didn’t.”

“Then let’s get to work.”


	2. Chapter 2

Steve blinks.

Tony is showing him video clips of a spider kid, swinging across the New York skyline in a breathtaking arch. Steve’s stomach flips over as the kid does a flip from one building to the next, landing effortlessly on his feet with a grace that can’t be human.

“You think _this_ is your intern?” Steve asks, glancing up from the tablet. Tony is hunched over beside him, elbows propped on his knees with a broad grin on his face.

“I have a hunch.”

“You have a hunch? What if you’re wrong?”

“What if I’m _right_?” Tony counters, pulling the tablet back. He punches in a series of numbers and a new video appears, the spider kid sneaking down an alley next to Stark Industries. He never reappears, but a minute later Tony’s intern appears around the corner and strides straight into the building.

“That doesn’t prove anything. It’s just a theory. A nice theory, but still just a theory. And even if you were right, what then? If he’s a kid, he can’t join the team.”

Tony sighs, long-suffering before he slumps back against the couch. “You, my love, need to relax.”

Steve rolls his eyes but he knows this game, leaning back against the couch with him and shaking out his shoulders before giving Tony a look that’s composed solely of disapproving eyebrows.

“Tony—”

“If the kid really is a superhero he’s going to need to be trained, right? Supported. Maybe he doesn’t have anybody else out there. It wasn’t like that for us. Everyone knew I was Iron Man, and the U.S. Army was hardly going to keep all this super soldier sexiness a secret. We’ve always had people. This kid is going to need people, Steve.”

“And you want us to be his people?”

“If it’s Parker, I think we’re the perfect people for him. You know, he’s had a terrible run so far. No parents, his aunt and uncle have been raising him since he was a kid, and his uncle was shot in an armed robbery right in front of him last year. Who knows a traumatized superhero better than we do?”

Steve leans forward with a smile and presses a kiss to Tony’s mouth. When he pulls back, Tony’s eyes are dancing, sparkling with light, and something so joyous makes Steve’s chest squeeze.

“You’re a good man,” Steve says, just to watch the flush appear high on Tony’s cheeks like it always does. Like Tony really can’t believe that Steve looks at him and sees the most amazing person on the planet.

Tony holds his gaze for a beat, then looks away, face buried back into his tablet. He’s talking, a stream of speculation on what the spider kid is using to swing from the rooftop but Steve stops trying to follow.

Steve just watches him: the graceful arcs he makes through the air as he talks with his hands, the way the fine lines around his eyes, appearing more and more each day, crinkle when he considers what type of suit might fit his fighting style best.

Then it hits him, when Tony is using words like _tensile strength_ and _adhesion rations_. One day soon, he’s going to marry this man.

“Tony,” Steve cuts him off and Tony’s head shoots up, surprised. “I really love you.”

“Love you too, Cap. Always.” 

Things finally start to feel normal again.

* * *

Steve blinks.

They haven’t had a trail on Bucky in weeks, and he wants to crawl out of his skin. Anticipation builds like a tsunami but doesn’t crest because every time they get close, every time someone gets a lead, Bucky outsmarts them. He’s amazing and horrific to track, leaving a trail of damage and dead HYDRA agents in his wake.

Steve has to find him.

“Cap, pay attention,” Tony snaps from across the gymnasium.

They’re running the same set of drills for the sixth or seventh time, and Steve can’t get his head in the game. Peter swings from the rafters above him, webbing his shield out of his grasp and tossing it aside to Sam before firing another shot that covers the cowl and steals his sight.

“Goddamn it,” Steve snaps, tearing at the webbing over his eyes.

“Language! You kiss Iron Man with that mouth Cap?” Peter chirps from the beams as Clint hoots with laughter from somewhere in the ventilation system.

“I love this kid, Stark!”

“I knew you would, Hawkass. You’re two sarcastic peas in a pod.”

“Enough chatter,” Steve says, trying to get a grip. Some team leader he is today.

When he finally strips the webbing off of his uniform and tosses it into the corner of the gym, Natasha is at his side, a subtle tilt of her head enough of a signal that Steve knows his next play.

While Tony is grounded, giving Wanda and Vision direction from one corner, Steve dives for his legs, getting a grip around one boot just as Tony soars back into the air. From this angle he can crawl halfway up the armour, swaying into the buckling as it groans under his weight, and Tony’s laughter rings in his ear.

“Steve, if you wanted to wrestle you could have just said something,” Tony teases, trying to shake him off his legs. The team groans in their ears, and beneath the cowl Steve is certain his cheeks have gone red.

“Just looking for a lift!”

Steve lets go just as Tony prepares to fire one of the supersonic blasts at him—nothing that will injure their teammates, but packing enough force to propel them backwards a fair distance—and lands on Sam in his pursuit of Natasha.

Sam plummets to the ground under Steve’s weight, his wings digging into Steve’s shins as he struggles to stay balanced before Steve rips the shield from his hands and rolls back down onto the mats. Sam wobbles in the air, trying to stay upright.

“Hey!” Sam crows, hovering a few feet above him. “You’re playing dirty.”

“Spider-Man started it,” Steve says, jerking a thumb over his shoulder with a smirk when Sam gapes at him.

“How old are you, man?”

“Ninety-eight this July!” Steve calls over his shoulder, darting across the gym. An arrow zips by his shoulder, the crackle of electricity at the tip buzzing in his ear as it goes.

“Damn it,” Clint mutters from locations unknown.

For a moment, he forgets all about Bucky. The lack of progress falls away and there’s just Steve and his team; Steve and his family. This merry band of misfits all broken and battered but somehow seamlessly stitched together, old and new.

Peter darts across the ceiling, and Steve calculates his next move but he gives himself away, eyes dart left as he feigns right. Steve makes a note to address the way he tracks his movements at their next individual session, but now, he uses it to his advantage, picking up the pace over the warning Wanda is calling from across the room. Just as Peter turns, just as he launches himself out of Steve’s path, Steve lets the shield fly.

It soars through the air, silent and shining against the fluorescent lights and slices a clean sweep through the lowest part of Peter’s web just above his grip. Peter tries to launch another but Natasha’s throwing star slices through it before it makes contact with the ceiling and he shoots, toppling from the open air in a flurry of limbs. 

“I gotcha, Pete,” Steve says as Peter lands squarely in his arms, and he grunts under the pressure. Thin and wiry as he may be, the kid’s all muscle under that adolescent frame, and Steve sets him on his feet with a consolatory pat on the back. He grins at Peter’s outraged look.

“If you kill me during training, I won’t be any use in the field, you know.”

“You’re so dramatic, Queens. We need to rearrange your patrols so you aren’t spending so much time with Iron Man. I’m beginning to think he’s a bad influence.”

Steve pats a hand on his shoulder as Tony touches down beside them, a gauntlet settling on the other. “Nice work, Peter.”

“Really nice work. But we’re going to work on your deception on Thursday.”

“Well,” Natasha says, wrestling Clint down from one of the vent shafts. He lands flat on his ass beside her. “Isn’t this a pretty family picture.”

Peter, who had been in the process of tugging off his mask, flushes bright red and looks between them, alarmed.

“If only you were so lucky, kid.” Tony ruffles a hand through his hair and nudges him off towards the showers before calling off the rest of the drills. The team doesn’t even give Steve a second glance, tossing weapons aside and heading off in various directions without so much as a word from their leader.

“Tony—”

“And you can come with me,” Tony says, slipping an arm around Steve’s waist and steering him towards the elevators. On the ride up to the penthouse, Tony is silent, one gauntleted hand tracing a circle on his back.

The doors open and once they're in a private space, the walls come down and Tony turns to Steve with a tentative, curious look. “Would you want that?” 

“Want what?”

“A family? With me? One day?”

Steve feels his eyes widen, knows that he’s gaping at Tony as Tony freezes halfway into the fridge and leans back to look at him. Uncertainty is written across Tony’s face, warring with a hopefulness that’s so plain Steve’s heart clenches. It’s a raw side of Tony that he rarely sees, a little shimmer of vulnerability like he isn’t quite sure what he’ll do if that’s not the future Steve wants.

“Tony,” Steve says softly, crossing the room and wrapping his arms around him. Tony goes like a ragdoll, pulled into Steve’s embrace. He kisses the sweaty hair under Tony’s ear. “You’re already my family. But if you want to add kids to that equation one day, I’m not going to say no.”

Awe blossoms across Tony’s face, and Steve will swear later that he saw a shimmer of tears. And Tony calls him the sap.

“Really?” Tony asks.

“Anything you want. One, two, a half dozen. Although with Peter it really does feel like we have one already, sometimes, doesn’t it?”

Tony just laughs and laughs.

* * *

Steve blinks.

Peggy is just as beautiful as she ever was, so still she could have been sleeping. Steve has seen more than his fair share of death, but seeing Peggy is something different. Her hair coils around her thin, time-weary face, and the flowers do their best to break through the cool sheen of death.

It’s gruesome, maybe, but Steve still thinks she looks so beautiful.

Steve jumps as Tony winds an arm around his waist, then lets himself sink into the embrace. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

It’s not an accusation, simply a question.

“I don’t know. I guess I thought this was something I needed to do on my own.” It’s the truth, but it feels like a lie on his tongue. The long line of heat at the side of his body chases away some of the chill to his loss.

Peggy wasn’t his, not really. But she was always something special.

“She was my aunt, you know.”

“What?” Steve blinks in surprise, finally looking down to see Tony’s face, a mirror to his own grief. There’s a small smile on his lips even though his eyes are wet, one that holds a warm, full history.

“Yeah. Godmother, if Mom was to be believed, but she and Howard had a falling out a few years after I was born. They never mentioned it after that. Aunt Peg was always there in the background, though.”

Tony looks away, resting a hand on the edge of the open coffin. The church has long since cleared out, and Sharon had given him a knowing little nod. Smoky incense curls around them, and Steve is at a loss for words.

“I called her the first time I got wasted,” Tony continues. “She was so disappointed, but it was hard to take her seriously in yesterday’s make up, her hair up in curlers on the top of her head. She even had her slippers on, pink, fluffy little things, looking so serious.”

Steve laughed, wet and short, trying to picture her pouring a young, drunken Tony into her car, stern even in disarray. “I didn’t know.”

“I wasn’t ready for you to know.” Tony shrugs, turning back. “I know how important she was to you, and I didn’t want to, I don’t know, impact that in some way, I guess. But you don’t have to do these things on your own anymore, Steve. Together, always. Remember?”

Steve shook his head, looking down at his feet with a soft sigh. Tony was right; he was always right and it might’ve been infuriating if the storm raging in Steve’s chest wasn’t so fierce. “I know. I do know that.”

Tony seems to accept that, eyes fixed on a spot over his shoulder. The silence feels heavy, like crawling underneath a layer of blankets on a frigid winter’s day. No matter how many times he swallows, the lump in Steve’s throat doesn’t shift. The tension in his chest coils and coils, wrapping around his heart like thorny vines and squeezing.

Peggy is gone. He’s starting to lose hope that they’ll ever get Bucky back and piece by piece, all he has left of his life from before feels like it’s slipping away. 

“Hey.”

Steve brushes a hand over his face but not before Tony is back at his side, reaching up and pushing the tears away with the tip of his thumb. Steve gives him a watery smile.

“Just let it come. Stop trying to push it all away.”

“And you’re the expert on that, are you?” Steve asked.

“Yeah,” Tony grinned, wrinkling his nose. “Yeah, right now I am.” He pauses, linking his fingers with Steve’s. “Did you tell her? About us? Before…”

He had. Peggy had been overjoyed, her eyes shining with an emotion he hadn’t quite been able to place, and it made sense now. If she’d known Tony, if she’d watched him grow—watched him struggle—that knowing smile was suddenly a key in the lock.

“Don’t ever let him go, Steve,” Peggy had said, a papery hand covering his. “Love him, marry him, whatever you want. But don’t ever let him go.”

Steve pulls Tony into his chest, burying a sob in the curve of his throat. “I did. I told her.”

One of Tony’s hands rubs circles into his back, smoothing over the creases and lines in the back of his suit. He must be staining Tony’s jacket, ruining the expensive fabric, but Tony doesn’t seem to mind. His hand stays, drifting through small patterns, rhythmic and smooth.

“I told her, too.” Tony whispers. “She told me not to ever let you go.”

The sobs come at double-time, taking over until there’s no air left in his lungs. The grief feels like a downpour.

Peggy was a goddamn powerhouse and that whole time, she’d known. She’d known, and she’d never said anything. And as always, she had been right. 

“I’m never letting you go,” Tony says, lips pressed to his ear. “Aunt Peg’s the smartest woman I’ve ever known. I’m never letting you go now, Steve.”

“Please don’t.”

They stand in the centre of the church until the storm in Steve’s chest passes. When he finally pulls away, Tony’s eyes are wet and red, and the kiss Tony plants on his lips is chaste but firm.

Tony’s phone rings, and Steve composes himself in the bathroom. When they meet outside the front of the church, Tony’s eyes are hard and strained.

Steve frowns. “What is it?”

“Time to suit up, Avenger. Nat’s got a lead on Bucky.”

* * *

Steve blinks.

Bucky’s cryostasis chamber slides shut, and the glass frosts over before Steve can think to say anything. He sends up a silent prayer for his eidetic memory. Even while Bucky is gone, he’ll remember the soft smile of his Bucky, breaking through the nightmare that was the Winter Soldier and holding up his hands, finally ready. Steve will remember the way his hair fell down to his shoulders, longer than Steve had ever seen it before the war, but somehow so very Bucky all the same because that smirk, that _grin_ of recognition made it all worth it.

“Are you okay?” Tony lays a hand on his shoulder, standing behind his chair. As Steve leans his head back, the hand migrates to his hair, pulling his head back against Tony’s stomach.

For a moment, Steve wants to lose himself in the comfort of Tony stroking through the strands, soothing him the way his mother might have when Steve was a child. But he opens his eyes and looks up into Tony’s concerned face.

“I don’t know,” Steve answers honestly.

“We’re going to figure this out, Steve. I promise. I have some new ideas for B.A.R.F., and who knows what Shuri could do for him. She’s got a phenomenal mind. We’ll figure this out.”

Steve sighs, watching the stark lights of the hospital room glitter off the icy glass. “How can you be so sure?”

“Because it’s for you,” Tony says, as if the answer is obvious. “I’d do anything for you, Steve.”

“I don’t deserve you.”

Tony leans down and presses his lips to his forehead. “You do. You absolutely do. You’re so hard on yourself. Just let me do this for you. For him.”

“Together,” Steve murmurs.

“Always together.”

Tony lingers behind him, fingers slipping down the back of his neck to massage at his shoulders, and Steve relaxes into the touch. He drifts on the thoughts of how easy things have been. There were so many times they could’ve broken. Maybe at times they’ve bent but they’ve never snapped.

This thing with Tony has never shattered, and he’s earned this. Every time Steve had wanted to run, every time he thought he’d have to go at it alone, Tony had proved him wrong, and in turn, Steve had earned his trust.

When everything in him told him to run, Steve let himself fall forward, and Tony had been there, every time.

“Come to bed, honey.”

Steve presses his cheek into Tony’s palm. “Tony?”

“Steve?”

“Will you marry me?”

Tony sucks in a sharp breath behind him, fingers twitching against Steve’s jaw. Tony’s silent for a long moment, but Steve doesn’t open his eyes. He listens to his unsteady breathing and waits until finally, Tony whispers, “Just name the time and place.”

* * *

Steve blinks.

Bucky is awake, grinning at him and flexing the fingers of his new metal arm. He’s working on peeling away a tiny arc reactor sticker Tony has slapped on the shoulder, and when he finally gets the edges peeled back, there’s nothing underneath. No sigil or brand, just a beautiful, silvery prosthesis that Tony has spent weeks building from scratch.

Steve glares at Tony, who sits twirling a multitool in his seat, grinning without remorse. “You never said—"

“I wanted it to be a surprise!” Tony’s indignation is laced with laughter.

“So, you’re okay then?” Steve asks, turning to Bucky. “No more trigger words? No more brainwashing?”

“Stark says he’s dealt with the worst of it. I’m still working with this big hunk of swiss cheese,” Bucky taps a finger to his temple with a bit of chagrin but the smile remains. “But it’s better than nothing.”

The joy, the _freedom_ , in his expression is so tangible it’s infectious.

“I really fucking missed you, Buck.” Steve says, stepping forward and wrapping Bucky up in his arms. He claps him hard on the back, holding onto him like he’s about to disappear again. 

Bucky clings to him just as tightly.

“Language! Sarah’d tan your hide for that kind of talk, pal,” Bucky chastises, and there’s laughter twinkling in his eyes when Steve pulls away. It’s the same laughter from when they were little more than children, when Bucky was all mischief and temper, and his ma and Bucky both could set Steve straight in an instant.

Tony bursts into surprised laughter behind them, and Steve flicks a glare at him over Bucky’s shoulder. “Really? How did you even manage to tell him that already?”

Tony shrugs, coming to stand next to them. “He asked me what you were like now, and that was the first story that came to mind. Don’t shoot the messenger, I just wanted Buckaroo to be up to date on team dynamics for when we recruit him.”

“And you just conveniently forgot to mention he was your boyfriend, did you?” Bucky prompted, finally taking a step back and leaning against the table. “I’m pretty sure there was more than enough time for that before I went back under, Steve.”

It hits him that Steve might be out of his depth. Between Bucky’s smart mouth and Tony’s sharp personality, he should have predicted they’d become fast friends.

And here they were, already teaming up against him.

Steve holds up his hands. “I didn’t—”

“Fiancé, actually,” Tony corrects.

“No shit. Congratulations! When’s the big day?”

Steve feels himself colour, and he glances down before he meets Bucky head on. “Anytime now. We’ve… been waiting.” Bucky’s eyebrows shoot up and Steve huffs, nudging him with a shoulder. “Well, I couldn’t go off and get married without my best man, now could I?”

“Aw, Stevie, you big shmuck!” Bucky throws an arm around his shoulder, tugging him into a playful squeeze. “Come on, why don’t you catch me up on what I’ve missed. That’s okay, right Tony? You don’t need me for anything else? And you don’t mind if I—”

“Go, go,” Tony shoos them off. “I’ve got some work to do here, and Steve’s been sulking around like a kicked puppy for months waiting for you to wake up. Go!”

Bucky was off like a shot, but Steve held back. Tony was smiling at him, genuine and open, washing away all the fears that Steve had sheltered over the last few months. He tilted his head askance, and Steve just shook his head, wrapping his arms around his waist and pulling him in.

He pressed his face into Tony’s throat, the scratch of his stubble prickling against Steve’s mouth. “Thank you. Thank you, so much.”

“Always together,” Tony whispered back, squeezing him tight. “I love you so much.”

“I love you.”

“Now, get out of here.”

* * *

Steve blinks.

Bucky fits into the team dynamic with a flawless ease that Steve finds as surprising as it is rewarding. After everything they went through to get him back, watching Bucky roll around on the gym mats with Natasha and move seamlessly through target practice with Clint warms him through. Bucky even manages to win Bruce over, sitting quietly in his lab and listening to Bruce’s gentle musings, eventually drifting off on the couch in the far corner. It’s a platonic reminiscence of Steve in Tony’s lab, and if he had any doubts about Bucky fitting into the family, they’re long gone now.

It’s quite the opposite, really, when he catches himself wondering if Bucky fits in a bit too well. It’s another one of those moments he knows he’s being irrational, but as he watched Bucky and Tony banter back and forth, bent close together over one of Tony’s cars, there isn’t a damn thing he can do about it.

“Listen, you self-righteous prick—”

“Oh, ho, Barnes, those are fightin’ words.” Tony throws his hands up from where he’s been tinkering on the 1932 roadster Bucky drools over. The first time he’d laid eyes on it, Steve had gotten an earful about keeping secrets and hoarding the wealth, and it had taken less than an hour for Bucky to drag Tony back down to the garage with permission to play.

As much as Steve loves his bike, the romance Tony and Bucky share with old cars is beyond him.

“I’ve been working on cars like these since before you were even a twinge in Howard’s balls, so why don’t you listen for a damn minute and I’ll—”

“First,” Tony says, with a sweeping gesture, plucking the multitool out of Bucky’s back pocket while he’s arms deep in the inner workings of the car. “Don’t ever talk to me about Howard’s balls. Second, if you think I’m going to believe that backwater Brooklyn Bucky Barnes could afford a car like this, let alone his rent, I’m sending you back into cryo for more testing.”

“Tony!” Steve says, appalled. Bucky and Tony both whirl to look at him, grinning at the horrified expression on his face. Bucky throws a greasy arm around Tony’s shoulder, smearing a patch across his cheek while Tony shoves at his immovable metal arm, indignant.

“Aw, he’s just playing around Stevie. Don’t get your panties in a twist. Speaking of which, Tony was just telling me about that pretty red number he got you last week.”

“Oh god.” Steve drags a hand over his face, resisting the surge of heat to the back of his neck. “Stop, this is too much. There needs to be some sort of rule around how much time you two spend together without me.”

Tony saunters over to him, looping two fingers into his belt buckle. “Why’s that, honey? You’re not jealous, are you?”

Steve snorts, affronted, but Bucky’s known him a lot longer than Tony and snaps his metal fingers at him, pointing. “You are jealous! You’re worried I’m zeroing in on your guy.”

“Of course, that’s not what I think, Buck. I’m just saying—” Steve breaks off, abruptly realizing that he doesn’t quite know what he’s saying. But that’s definitely not what he’d meant. He’d only meant—

“The metal arm does add a special appeal,” Tony admits, giving Bucky a speculative glance. Bucky rolls his eyes, letting the hood of the car drop shut and shucking the rest of his tools back into Tony’s kit.

“You’re not my type. No offense. It’s your dick.”

“Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it, Barnes,” Tony waggles his eyebrows at Steve, and the heat on his neck surges up to his cheeks. “I’m sure Steve could tell you a thing or two about that.”

“Tony, please.” It’s only a little bit desperate, but Tony finds it in his heart to take pity on him and leans up to kiss him on the mouth, lingering a beat longer than usual.

“Alright, I’m outta here. If you fuck on the car, wipe down the hood,” Bucky says as he passes them.

“Jerk,” Steve mutters, tightening his arm around Tony’s waist.

“Punk.”

“Gross. You two are made for each other.” But even as he says it, Tony’s smiling, draping his arms around Steve’s neck to tug him in. When they’re finally alone, Tony works up to kissing Steve breathless, then leans back and asks, “You’re not really jealous, are you? You don’t have anything to worry about.”

Steve considers waving it off, but Tony's seen right through him. “It’s not really a big deal.”

“Oh, no?” Tony asks. “Because you know, sometimes jealousy can be a good thing. Sometimes the jealousy can actually be really, really hot.” As he speaks, Tony’s mouth trails across Steve’s jaw until he bites down on Steve’s earlobe and sneaks a hand around his waist to grab his ass and roll up against him.

“Is that right?”

“Mm,” Tony hums, taking the green light and working at his belt. “That’s right. If you just need a little reminder that I’m yours, or maybe that’s not what does it for you? No, I think it’s the other way around.” Tony dips a hand down into his boxers and wraps his fingers around Steve’s cock, already mostly hard and craving his touch. “I think you’d want to make sure I remember who I belong to. I think you’d want to remind me that I’m _yours_.”

Steve groans and cups his chin, jerking his face back up to plunder Tony’s mouth. He shoves his tongue between Tony’s lips and relishes the little moan Tony rewards him with, sucking on him the same way those expert lips wrap around his dick.

That’s what Steve wants. Tony, on his knees, taking his reminder without complaint and knowing, by the end, that he belongs to Steve. That he’s always belonged to Steve since that very first day.

“Come here.” Steve hauls him backwards towards the roadster, leaning back against it as Tony eagerly finishes unbuttoning his pants. He shoves them as far as they’ll go, tangled around Steve’s ankles, and then he drops to his knees.

Tony’s never needed much direction. He knows Steve like the back of his hand, which makes sense. He was there for the majority of the discovery, and he puts his learning to good use now. Tony’s tongue is hot and wet, licking up the underside of Steve’s cock, following the thick vein up to the head before he dips his tongue into the slit. It’s too early, too soon, and it sends sparks shooting down to Steve’s toes as he groans and slides a hand into Tony’s hair.

“You want me to do the work?” Tony asks, glancing up at him when he pulls off and starts unbuckling his own pants. “Or do you want to do the honours?”

Steve’s mouth runs as dry as the Sahara. “You mean—”

“Oh yeah, I didn’t even need to ask. Go ahead and fuck my face, honey. Remind me exactly who I belong to.”

“ _Fuck_.” His hand tightens in Tony’s hair and Tony dips forward, nosing against the crease of his thigh before sucking him down, hollowing his cheeks and creating that tight, hot suction that drives Steve wild.

He doesn’t get into it right away. It still feels rude, disrespectful even though they’ve done this before, and with a raspy voice, Tony has thanked him after. Praised him, even.

And it’s not that he’s all that jealous. He knows that Bucky and Tony would never—of course, he knows that.

Tony pulls back, giving him a disapproving look. “I can hear you thinking from here. What could you possibly be thinking about right now aside from coming all over my face?”

Steve flushes, licking his lips as another bolt of arousal rushes south. His cock twitches in Tony’s grip, and Tony waggles his eyebrows at him, sucking him back down and pointedly pushing Steve’s hand down on his hair.

When Steve’s cock bumps the back of his throat, Tony moans, sending a series of vibrations rushing through him. It’s good. It’s perfect, and Tony belongs to him. This mouth, these beautiful, skilled hands. The way that Tony swallows around him like he’s already trying to milk Steve through his orgasm.

“Oh fuck,” Steve mutters, getting a firm grasp on Tony’s hair and pulling him in. He starts to move his hips, just little hitches into his mouth until Tony flicks a look up at him again, and it’s all the permission Steve needs.

He thrusts deep into his throat, savouring the way Tony chokes just enough to pull back before he dives back in, meeting every roll of Steve’s hips like he was made for sucking his cock. Spit drips out from the corner of his mouth and onto the hood of the car between Steve’s legs, and below him, Tony’s free hand starts working on his own cock.

Just the thought that Tony is taking as much pleasure in this as Steve is drives his desire skyrocketing up. He sets a vicious pace, letting Tony gag around him and pull away just long enough to take a breath, pulling him back and holding him still. Tony’s fist flies over his cock, taking what he needs and showing Steve exactly who he belongs to. Tony getting off on just a cock in his throat is almost too much and Steve closes his eyes, letting his head drop back and gripping the edge of the car.

Something creaks and groans beneath him, but Steve ignores it, yanking Tony back just as he’s about to hit that crest. He wraps a hand around himself and tugs Tony back by his hair with the other.

“Yeah, come on,” Tony rasps, waiting with his mouth cracked open. His tongue peeks out between swollen lips and laps at the head of Steve’s cock as he strips his length, jerking off with a furious determination to come all over Tony’s face.

“Say it,” Steve gasps, forcing himself to keep his eyes open because he doesn’t want to miss this. “Tony, please, just—”

“I’m yours.” Tony’s voice is wrecked and scratchy, and _Steve_ did that. Because Tony belongs to him. Tony’s _his._ “I’m yours, Steve. Fuck, come on, baby.”

Steve groans, pulse thundering in his ears as he comes, streaking Tony’s mouth, his cheeks, his jaw. A little bit drips down onto his shirt, but Tony’s already too far gone to notice, shuddering as he comes on the hard concrete, spilling into his own hand. Steve didn’t even have to _touch_ him.

“Fuck.”

“Damn right,” Tony agrees, laughing as he fishes around for a clean towel and starts mopping up his face. “Feel better now?”

Steve huffs a little but smiles, tugging Tony in until he’s leaning against his chest, the car supporting both their weight. “I don’t really mind, you know. I’m glad you’re friends and I know that nothing would ever happen. You know that right? That I trust you, completely?”

“Oh, God,” Tony groans, burying his face in his shoulder. “Do you have to be so goddamn genuine all the time?”

“Tony—”

“Yes, okay? Yes, I know you trust me, and I didn’t question that for a minute. I just wanted to have some hot, rough sex with my fiancé, not a heart-to-heart.”

Steve squeezes him tighter, hiding a smile in his hair. “Okay, Tony.”

When Tony eventually pulls away and starts zipping up his pants, Steve follows suit. He pushes off the car and reaches down to tug his jeans up when Tony gasps.

“Steve, what the hell!” Steve whips around to see the source of Tony’s distress. Five perfect fingermarks denting the hood of his vintage car. Shit.

“Oh, geez. I’m sorry, Tony, I didn’t realize—”

“I’m not!” Tony crows, breaking out into a grin. “I’m making Barnes sand those out tomorrow. Can’t wait to see the look on his face when I tell him how you—”

Steve kisses him, laughing when Tony keeps up a steady stream of words against his lips. Maybe their friendship has a few perks in it for Steve after all.

* * *

Steve blinks.

Bucky is straightening his tie, a dark, silky red piece that Tony’s picked for him when he hears it.

It isn’t the first time Tony’s forgotten about his enhanced hearing, and he stiffens when he hears Rhodes and Tony talking through the door. They’re just on the other side of the suite, through the closed connecting doors, getting ready in the living room that opens into a broad, elegant kitchenette.

“What if I can’t do this?” Tony asks, anxiousness laced through in his voice.

Bucky’s head shoots up, and he gapes at Steve, wide-eyed, before he stiffens and glares at the door like he’s going to storm through it and haul Tony to the altar himself.

Steve puts a hand on his shoulder, but his stomach does little triple loops while they wait.

“Tones—”

“He’s too good for me, Rhodey,” Tony says. “He’s everything that’s good in this world, and how do I live up to that? How can I live up to that for the rest of our lives together?”

“What do you want me to say, here?” Rhodes asks in a tone that makes Steve bristle. “If this doesn’t have your daddy issues written all over it, I don’t know what does. Do you want a supportive best man? Or a getaway car? Whatever you want, it’s yours.”

“If I wanted a getaway car, I’d’ve called Happy,” Tony grumbles, and that’s when Bucky grins at Steve, using the hand Steve has on his shoulder for leverage to pull him in and clap him on the back, disheveling his tie in the process only to start fussing with it all over again.

“Steve’s the best thing that ever happened to you. And it doesn’t take much to know you’re the best thing that ever happened to him. You think any of us could go through the things you two have gone through and make it out? This doesn’t just happen by accident, Tony.”

“I know that—”

“Just—shut up for a minute. Everyone always says that he straightened you out. That he’s somehow responsible for the goodness in you, but that’s been there all along. I know you think he makes you a better man, but you’re wrong. You make _him_ a better man. He’s damn lucky, and if you can’t do this, that’s okay. But it’s not you who should be standing here wondering if you’re going to be living up to expectations.”

Steve swallows down the lump in his throat, giving Bucky a watery half-smile. How in the hell is he going to make it through the ceremony? How is he going to read his _vows_?

“He’s right,” Steve whispers.

“Yeah, punk. I already knew that.” Bucky gives him a light sock to the shoulder before he crosses the room and wordlessly hands Steve a tissue. They both pretend not to notice that Bucky’s sniffling too.

Through the doorway, Steve hears a loud _thunk_ and a huff of air before Tony and Rhodes are both laughing, and Steve imagines Tony half-wrapped around him, while Rhodes, straight-faced, tries to squirm out of the embrace.

The vacations they’ve gifted Rhodes and Pepper, and Bucky and Natasha won’t ever be enough. All these people, holding them together. Steve will never be able to thank them the way they deserve.

Steve will spend the rest of his life working to deserve Tony, he knows. But he’ll spend the rest of his life working to deserve all of them. His friends. His family.

His home, no matter where they are.

“So, Rhodey,” Tony’s voice wafts through the door, rife with trouble. “Any wedding night advice?”

“Get away from me. Tony, I mean it—”

* * *

Steve blinks.

The Compound stands in the distance, glowing against the low dip of the afternoon sun. When they’d started the planning, Steve had suggested they hold the ceremony down by the river for the quiet. The soft wind and the gentle lapping of water; an atmosphere he knew Tony loved. It had surprised him when Tony had suggested an arch against the treeline. 

“So, what you’re saying,” Steve had said slowly, “is that you want to be able to look at the Compound when we get married.”

Tony just smiled, like he’d already worked the whole thing out.

“To look at our home, Steve. So, I can look at you, and look at our home, and know exactly where we belong.”

Tony was right. No surprise there.

Now, their song wafts through the Compound, and Steve can’t hold back the tears as Tony looks into his eyes and tells him every way he has and will love him for the rest of their lives. He hopes that this feeling never fades, that Tony’s love is always shocking in its vastness, and that until the day he dies, Tony will always steal the breath from his lungs and breathe life back into his body with just a passing glance.

Steve stumbles his way through his own vows, the fearless leader and motivational speaker in him left behind because Tony Stark is marrying Steve Rogers, and Steve Rogers never really had a way with words. When he finally finishes, he watches with wet eyes while Tony slides the vibranium wedding band onto his fingers and makes promises that sound simple on his lips: to love Steve, to cherish him, and to do things together, always.

Steve whispers the words back to him, and no one else exists. There’s only Tony, looking up at him like Steve’s the only person in the universe. When Tony looks at him, he can almost believe it.

The small crowd of their extended family and friends fades into the background, and Steve slides the matching band onto Tony’s finger.

He hears their names, together, side by side, for the very first time.

Then Steve’s kissing him like they have all the time in the world. He kisses him and keeps kissing him until Tony is breathless and laughing against his lips. Until Tony presses up against him with a soft gasp, and his tongue slides into his mouth, and Bucky coughs lightly over his shoulder. 

They tear apart, grinning.

There’s no doubt about it. This is the happiest day of his life.

Steve grabs Tony’s hand and drags him down the short aisle between all their friends and family before he stops. He doesn’t know where to go next. He pauses at the end of the trail of flowers and looks at Tony, expectant. His true north, always.

Tony tilts his head in a nod back to their friends, all standing now, cheering with red-rimmed eyes and the biggest, brightest smiles Steve’s ever seen.

There’s nowhere to go because this is exactly where Steve is supposed to be. He’s already home.

* * *

Steve blinks.

“You’re not listening; that’s not how these things go,” Tony says, flapping the thick stack of papers in his face. He’s red-faced and angry, the hand not holding the Sokovia Accords package in a tight fist at his side.

Steve lets out a heavy breath through his nose and reminds himself why he’s here. This is Tony, his partner. His brand-new husband. They’ve muddled their way through everything else, and they’re going to make it through this one too.

“I’m just saying that we can’t put our stock in this. I don’t have a problem with oversight, I have a problem with a gag and a shock collar.”

“It’s the United Nations!” Tony cries. “How can you be condescending, Steve? They don’t want to collar us, they want to oversee us, and frankly, if people are as scared as we know they are, and this could change that… Maybe we need it.”

Steve frowns, considering all the ways that Tony’s just given himself away. It feels like they’ve been here before. Steve knows the words as well as he knows the back of his own hands even if he can’t fully place how he knows them. “Tony, people aren’t afraid of you. Ultron was a mess, yes, and we screwed up in Lagos, but people aren’t afraid of you. You don’t need this to somehow clear your conscience. We’re past that, aren’t we?”

Tony’s resolve wavers, and he narrows his eyes. “That’s not what this is about. Stop twisting my words. Yes, Ultron and Lagos were both ultimate fuck ups, but this isn’t about _me_ —”

“You’re right,” Steve interrupts, leaning back in his chair. They’ve been here before and this time Steve knows how he wants to play his hand. There’s no use in convincing Tony that he doesn’t need to be watched, because he’s vulnerable. He’ll dig his heels in further and the fight will explode, maybe at a different time and in a different way, but Steve knows Tony well enough by now.

He also knows that when he doesn’t rise to the challenge, it’ll take the wind right out of Tony’s sails. Tony gives him an uncertain look, then throws the Accords down on the conference room table. 

“What?” Tony runs a hand through his hair and down over his face. There’s exhaustion hollowed under his eyes and his shirt is crumpled.

“It’s not about you. It’s about us. It’s about presenting a united front, and we need to be on the same page. So, let’s figure out what that is and get the team on board. If we’re in this together, you know they will be too.”

“It’s not that simple, Steve. This is politics. You don’t know Ross like I do—”

“Then tell me,” Steve says, leaning forward and bracing his forearms on the table. “Explain it to me. I promise I’ll hear you out, but you can’t just expect me to blindly buy into this plan. I’m not making a decision that could have serious repercussions because you still think you have to atone for your sins.”

Tony sighs, dropping back into the chair across from him. He shoots Steve a lopsided grin with only a touch of self-deprecation, and Steve will take it. “When’d you get so smart, huh?”

“We’re in this together,” Steve reminds him. Always. “Maybe not everything needs to be a battle anymore. Don’t you think we’re getting a little old for that, sweetheart?” 

“Getting a little old for that, he says,” Tony grumbles, but the twist on his lips doesn’t falter. “You haven’t aged a goddamn day. And I’ll fight with you every day for the rest of my life, honey, if that’s what you want.”

“I’m tired, Tony. Too tired for this. If you think we can figure it out—if you think you can pull us through this, I’ll believe you.”

In the end, it’s not difficult. It’s as simple as twisting his fingers through Tony’s and taking a stand. It’s as simple as accepting what they have to and refusing to budge on what they don’t. 

* * *

Steve blinks.

“Come on, baby, yes. Just like that.” Tony shoves back onto the two slick fingers Steve has crooking in and out of his ass, his left hand tight around his hip to keep him close, or slow him down, Steve isn’t quite sure.

Tony’s on display across their bedspread, ass up, weight resting on his forearms, and as he presses his face into the mattress, he moans. He’s always been loud since that very first day, and it never ceases to stoke that low-burning fire in Steve’s belly back into a firestorm of want and desire.

Everyone gets to see the flashy, over-the-top Tony Stark with his media smiles and luxury clothing. But no one gets to see him like this, stripped down and naked, open and willing. No one gets to hear these sounds or bask in the breathy way that Tony’s tongue wraps around Steve’s name when he’s trembling and begging to come.

“You’re beautiful like this,” Steve says because it’s true, sliding his hand over his side, tracing the little asymmetrical divots of scar tissue there before he digs his fingers into one of Tony’s hip bones and hauls him back, drawing out another one of those delicious little sounds.

“I asked you to fuck me, honey, not woo me. You’ve wooed enough by now, don’t you think?”

Steve grins, leaning over to press a kiss between his shoulder blades before driving his fingers down hard, right into the spot inside him that lights Tony up from the inside out. His husband—his _husband_ — curls up under him, back arching like a cat, chasing the sensation as if Steve’s about to steal his fingers back any second. 

“Like that, sweetheart?”

“God, yes, just like that—no, _fuck_ , stop. Stop, Steve. Hurry up and get in me, already.”

Steve laughs, slowing until his fingers are just resting inside of Tony. He savours the clenching heat of him as Tony makes little mutters of protests and squirms in his grasp. “Which is it, Tony? Stop, or hurry up?”

Tony groans into the duvet. “You’re such an asshole. You know what I want.”

“Tell me again, anyway.”

“Fuck me.” Tony doesn’t miss a beat. His head rolls to the side, and Steve catches a glimpse of red cheeks and blown-black eyes before Tony’s eyelids flutter closed. His body jerks under a final sharp crook of Steve’s fingers, buried into the hilt again. “Yes, yes, baby. Just fuck me. That’s what I want. Fuck me every day for the rest of our lives.”

Steve groans and jolts forward, cock leaving a damp trail along the back of Tony’s thigh. Is this really what it can be like for them? The rest of their lives?

The glitter of his wedding ring catches Steve’s attention, and suddenly the anticipation dissolves into something different, something more significant. He swallows hard, the prickle of tears in his eyes because this is his husband.

This is Tony Stark and Steve’s husband, and Steve gets to _have_ this. He gets to have this for the rest of his goddamn life.

“Steve?”

Jerking his head up, Steve realizes that Tony’s pushed up onto his hands and knees, giving him a concerned look over his shoulder. He shakes his head, trying to get himself under control, but the tears burn into full drops. Steve licks his lips, trying to generate enough saliva to swallow down how much he loves this beautiful, unbelievable man.

“Hey, hey what is it?” Tony scrambles forward, concerned, but Steve just tugs him into his arms. He can still see him that very first time Tony kissed him, when he tasted like Mediterranean spices and hot sauce and sweet, delectable honey. When things were new and fresh but practically nothing in the face of all they’ve built together. 

“I love you,” Steve chokes out, hands framing Tony’s face. “I just—I love you so much, Tony.”

The soft lines around Tony’s eyes deepen like creases on a well-loved paperback, and Tony brushes his fingers through Steve’s hair, searching his eyes with an almost patient disbelief. “I love you, too. That’s why I married you, sweet pea.”

“I didn’t think I would ever have this.” Once he starts, the words spill out of him like the tears slipping down his cheeks. Tony kisses them away, chasing after them as they drop and pool in his clavicles. “I wanted it, but there was never time to think about it. And then I woke up, and everyone I knew—everyone was gone and I— I didn’t think I would have this. Didn’t think _we_ could have this. Tony, we get to have this for the rest of our lives.”

“I know.” Tony presses his nose into the centre of Steve’s chest and huffs a little disbelieving laugh. “God, I know.”

Steve kisses him again, claiming his mouth like he’d claimed him as his partner in front of everyone. He kisses Tony like if he licks deep enough into his mouth, they might learn how to share air, never having to part to take a breath.

Tony scrambles onto Steve’s lap and wraps his thighs around him. He wraps his arms around his neck and holds him fast.

“A whole life,” Steve mutters against his skin. “Kids and grandkids. I’m going to grow old with you.”

“Yes. All of it, yes. Please.”

Tony reaches past him, twisting in Steve’s grip before he realizes that he’s fishing for the bottle of lube. With a fresh wave of cool slick and Tony’s firm, tight grip wrapped around his cock, Steve groans, tugging Tony more fully onto his lap so he can line them up and savour Tony sinking down, inch by hot inch.

Tony looks into his eyes as he does, pupils dilating and a red flush rushing to his cheeks as Steve tugs Tony down and buries himself in him. Everything around them fades into the background, and it’s just Tony. Tony, rocking himself forward and back. Tony, biting down on his shoulder and tugging on his hair.

Tony, whispering in his ear. “You’re all I ever wanted; you know that? I knew, that very first day when you sucked on my fingers—”

“I didn’t suck on your fingers!”

“—You did, and you know you did. But I knew, Steve. Oh, baby, _yes_. Right there, honey, please.” Tony shivers when Steve reaches between them, curling his left hand around Tony’s cock just to watch the glint of his wedding ring as little pearls of white slip from the tip and wet his fingers. “I knew. Oh, _fuck me_ , I knew.”

Steve fucks him until Tony’s babbling turns into a steady stream of gasping breaths, then kisses him as his come spills down and over Steve’s fist. 

Steve knew too. Ever since that very first day. A mountain of Ross’ paperwork couldn’t keep him away. 

* * *

Steve blinks.

He jolts out of sleep to the sounds of Tony’s screaming and gives F.R.I.D.A.Y. a sharp order for the lights. The soft, dull yellow fills the room, and Steve lays a hand on his shoulder, firm but not pressing him down.

“Tony. Tony, it’s just a nightmare. Come on, wake up.”

Tony jerks up, breathing hard. His eyes are unfocused, scanning the bed, then the room, then following the trail of Steve’s arm to his face. He’s white as a sheet and drenched in so much sweat the sheets are damp from where he was lying.

“Fuck. Fuck that was—”

“Just a nightmare. Hey, you’re okay.” Steve rubs at his back, nudging a little closer. “Haven’t had one like that in a while, huh?”

“It felt real.” Tony’s hands clench in the duvet. His shoulders shake, and whatever he’s seen has his heart pounding rapidly in his chest. “It felt more than real. God.”

Steve brushes a hand over his hair, and Tony leans into him. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Tony shakes his head. “It’s nothing. Probably nothing. I don’t think I ever told you what Wanda showed me, but back when she scrambled my brains, she showed me a vision of something coming. Like the Chitauri but worse. I saw it again, but it felt like a warning. It feels like something bigger is still out there.”

A sharp curl of dread tightens in his stomach. Tony had never told him that, not that he can remember. He can’t remember ever discussing what Tony had seen that day, and with the backdrop of everything else they’d been dealing with, Steve hadn’t paid it a second thought.

“It was just a dream,” Steve says again, feeling less certain even as the words leave his lips.

“Something isn’t right.” Tony shakes his head, giving him a questioning look. “Something doesn’t feel right, Steve. I can’t put my finger on it. It’s almost like we’re not supposed to be here. Like you’re—”

“Hey, stop.” Steve leans in and brushes his lips against Tony’s, abruptly cutting him off. “Don’t worry about that. We’re exactly where we’re supposed to be, and if something else comes, we’ll be ready. You know we’ll be ready.”

Tony gives him a contemplative frown, then relaxes back into him. “You’re right. I know you’re right. It was probably just a dream.”

It’s a long while before Tony’s breathing settles enough that Steve thinks he must be back to sleep. Tony’s nightmare lies between them, a heavy weight on the mattress, stealing Steve’s calm.

The word revolves round and round in his mind. Probably. Probably, probably, probably.

* * *

Steve blinks.

“Stevie—”

Bucky disintegrates before Steve can get to him, collapsing into a pile of ash on the jungle floor. Steve’s shock is more oppressive than the sweltering heat, heavy in his veins and impossible to breathe through. He scratches at the ground, searching through the trees as if Bucky hasn’t just disappeared from the planet.

As if he hasn’t just been snapped out of existence.

“Tony?” Steve calls out, panicked, whipping around to where he last saw his husband, his own armour protruding from his stomach when that bastard of a wizard had given up the stone.

For all he knew, Tony was dead, laying on the ground, bleeding into the Wakanda foliage.

“Steve!”

He spots him, a stone’s throw away. His suit is mangled in various places, but the wound in his side is freshly stitched with nanites. Peter is in his arms, gasping.

Steve scrambles across the dirt, rocks scraping against his knees when he drops down next to them, hauling them both into his arms.

Peter’s eyes are glassy and distant, struggling to focus on Tony’s face.

“I don’t feel well, Mr. Stark. Cap. I don’t—”

“It’s okay Queens.” His voice cracks. He grips Peter’s arm tighter, anchoring him to the Earth. He’ll replace gravity if he has to. “It’s okay. You’re going to be okay.”

“I don’t want to go. Please, I don’t want to go.”

Peter shudders and goes limp, tears slipping out of the corner of his eyes. Steve feels him disappearing, even before he goes. There’s a snap second of horror where Steve knows he’s disappearing, just before Peter’s arm turns to ash between Steve’s fingers, and Tony pitches forward with a gasp.

He doesn’t react fast enough to catch Tony, his arms hanging like deadweight at his side with Peter no longer in them. Tony collapses onto leaves streaked with blood and remnants of their friends. His clenched fists slam into the earth, and Steve expects him to scream.

Steve wants him to scream. “Tony. Tony?”

Tony doesn’t respond, his head hanging low.

There isn’t a thought in Steve’s mind, not a whisper of plan or the next move. They’re gone. They’re _all_ gone. Who knows who else remains? It doesn’t matter, he thinks frantically. It doesn’t matter who’s left because half of them are gone.

They’ve failed. 

They’ve _failed_.

“Tony?” Steve tries again. He lays a hand on Tony’s shoulder to pull him into his arms. They have to tend to the others. They have to account for the dead. They have to—

“Together,” Tony whispers, small and wretched. He doesn’t look at him. There are tears sparkling on his gauntlets, and the final remaining pieces of Steve’s heart shatter into fine grains of sand. “Always, together. That’s what you said.”

“What?”

“You said we’d do it together. Always together. You said—that’s what you said, Steve!”

Tony rounds on him, knocking his hand away. There’s dirt all over his face and a cut on his forehead weeping blood down to his jaw. Another slices through the opposite cheek, the bleeding already slowing.

The look he gives Steve is decimating. It’s rage and heartbreak and a man lost, looking for a place to lay the blame. He can lay the blame at Steve’s feet if he has to. Steve will take it all, only if it means that he never loses him, never has to watch him collapse before he hits the ground and disappear on the breeze.

He can take the blame if Tony stays, solid as concrete in his arms.

“Tony, sweetheart, I—”

“We have to find the others.” Tony shoves away from him, stumbling unsteadily to his feet. Steve follows him in a body that floats two steps behind, disconnected and disjointed. He catches Tony’s elbow and when he turns him, grief rages in the brown of his eyes and he’s covered, chest to thigh, in dust.

Steve brushes a hand over him, wiping as much as he can off the armour while Tony looks away. He refuses to let himself process that this is _Peter_ he’s brushing away.

When he’s done, Tony says again, “We have to find the others.”

“I—Just, hold on.”

Steve pitches sideways, bracing himself on the nearest tree with a forearm and retches into the dirt. He heaves until it all comes up then drags the back of his arm across his mouth and spits.

It doesn’t feel like enough.

When he finally turns back to Tony, the tears are spilling over. His lips tremble but he doesn’t speak. He doesn’t say anything more.

Neither of them do.


	3. Chapter 3

Steve blinks.

Nothing will ever be the same. After all their options run dry, they stop talking. It’s been days, and Tony hasn’t said a word.

Eventually they move out to the lake house. There’s nothing more they can do in New York. The leads have run dry, and at some point, the realization has settled in. They’ve lost. Irrevocably.

On the first day upstate, Tony hangs the picture of himself and Peter with Peter’s internship award above the kitchen sink and stares at it while he washes the dishes. He doesn’t speak to Steve. He hardly looks at him at all.

Steve hangs the photo of all three of them, Steve, Tony and Bucky, in the room he’ll make into an art studio. Bucky is pressed between them, rolling his eyes at Tony’s peace sign, and the grin on Steve’s face feels like a distant, foreign memory now. 

The days bleed together, and he sits there with Bucky’s ghost. The silence is maddening so he draws, or tries to, anyway. Sometimes he draws the horizon or finds himself sketching Bucky glaring and making rude gestures as if he were flipping off a camera. Sometimes Steve just sits there and stares at the photograph, wondering how they only got such a short time to be happy.

After all they went through to get him. Gone again. Dust on Steve fingertips. When he can’t look anymore, Steve crawls into bed next to Tony.

There’s still nothing to say.

* * *

Steve blinks.

“I’m sorry,” Tony whispers to the ceiling. They’re lying together, weeks after half the world disappeared, in the too-large bed with the too-wide space between them. They aren’t touching and haven’t in longer than Steve can remember in all the time they’ve been together.

He gets it. Touching Tony feels like something stolen. Like something he hardly deserves because Tony was right: they were supposed to win, together. They didn’t. 

Now, Tony breaches the silence, and the torrent of loss comes flooding in at full force.

“What?” Steve asks.

With the same quiet, even voice, Tony says again, “I’m sorry.”

The silence hangs on until the last moment, clawing at them. Steve closes his eyes. “I know.”

What more is there to say?

Every time he opens his mouth, the words die on his tongue because he can’t figure out where to begin. There’s a pandemonium of chaos overtaking the globe. In some places, they haven’t even finished counting the lost. Governments are in chaos, and their own leaders are calling on them. On Tony. On the remaining Avengers.

There’s no answers to any of the questions. There’s nothing more they can say, and the world doesn’t need any more platitudes. The whole world weeps, and they aren’t going to be able to fix it this time.

“I don’t really blame you. I didn’t mean that.” It’s an abdication Steve doesn’t deserve.

“Even if you did—”

Tony raises his hand between them. “I don’t. I’m sorry for saying it.”

“I know.” Something dislodges in Steve’s chest. A blossom of hope unfurls, and it’s a dangerous thing. Steve’s learned by now not to hope, but just like that first time Tony gasped his way back to life on the New York pavement, Steve’s universe resets and he’s back at the beginning again. “I love you, Tony. It’s fine.”

“They’re really gone, aren’t they?” He whispers the words as if he just now realizes, for the very first time, that the world has been irreversibly changed. As if the last twenty-seven days hadn’t even happened.

The wound in Steve’s chest feels just as fresh. The nightmares are paralysing. Even when he was first waking up in the present, adjusting to a new world where everyone was long gone and nothing made sense… Nothing has ever compared to this.

And finally, the reality seems to settle over Tony too. Grief spills out of him, red and desolate. They’ve been bleeding all over each other for weeks.

“Yeah, Tony. They’re really gone.”

* * *

Steve blinks.

The first time his world had tilted on its axis, Steve had thrown himself into his work. An alien invasion had been more than enough to take his mind off the sheer propensity of his losses. And then there was Tony.

Tony. The constant ever since.

Slowly, they figure out how to make a life for themselves. When it’s clear the world no longer needs the Avengers, thrust into an unofficial exile, Steve hangs up his suit and shoves the shield into the back of an unused closet. The Iron Man suits, all but one, stand like funeral monuments in Tony’s workshop in the basement of the Compound.

They locked up most of the facility a long while ago, closing down wings and saying goodbye to the staff that remained. Natasha stays, because where else would she go? Bruce stays with her. They try to organize with the local governments to provide relief but are repeatedly told their services are ‘no longer required’.

Why would they be? They’ve failed.

When it’s clear they don’t have the answers, and they aren’t going to bring anyone back, the world turns away. It’s an irony, staring in the face of Ross’ failed attempts to shackle them just months before the snap. Now, Ross is gone, and the world doesn’t care what the Avengers are doing.

The world doesn’t care about the Avengers at all.

“Maybe we should get an alpaca,” Tony suggests, nose buried in his tablet while Steve reads the same line, over and over again in the newspaper. He hums without commitment. It’s Tony’s newest thing, these animals. They’ve accumulated half a farm in their backyard, and Tony loves them all.

Anything to keep him busy. Anything to pass the time.

“Sure, Tony.”

“How about a couple chickens?”

Steve reads the line again. Has it really been almost a year? There’s a memorial raising in San Francisco next month. _The Wall of the Vanished_. Steve wants to vomit. He wants to scream.

A year has drifted by and he’s hardly even realized it.

“Yeah, of course.”

“Oh good, because I was thinking maybe if it goes over well with the chickens, we could try a dragon next? Nothing too big, just a small one.”

An entire year and he’s barely even taken a breath. A year without Bucky. A year without Sam. They’d fought so hard to get here. To be happy. _Always, together_.

What a goddamn farce.

And now Steve can’t even think about what he’s done in a year, rundown by the deluge of loss. They saved the world six years ago, and what do they have to show for it now?

Nothing.

“Sounds nice,” Steve says, because Tony had asked him something. He can’t tear his eyes away from the columns, sticking out from the black and white newsprint like a bed of nails.

That’s what the grief has been. A bed of nails that he’s been laid down over, pressed down, down, down until it pierces every inch of him. The wounds have healed over, but the nails shift and jab under his skin every time he moves.

“Honey.” Steve looks up with watery eyes, and Tony swims in his vision. He gets up from his chair and crosses the few steps between them, settling in Steve’s lap with his knees on either side. “Take a breath.”

Tony’s hand settles over his chest, and Steve closes his eyes and breathes. The air tastes sour in his mouth and sits heavy in his lungs, but the second breath is easier. Then the third. Tony always knows just what to say, just what to do, when Steve sits there, useless, drowning in loss.

“It’s okay. Just, tell me.” Tony brushes fingers through his hair, looks into his eyes with that soft, ever-present warmth. God, what did he ever do to deserve that?

“A year, Tony.” Steve shakes his head at the enormity of the loss. Then again, softer, “A whole year.”

“Yeah. A whole year.”

Tony doesn’t offer placations or reassurances. He sits in the presence of their grief and breathes, as if it’s the easiest thing in the world. As if he somehow has learned to sift through all the sadness and let the days pass through him like a sieve. Steve watches his eyes drift over his shoulder, catching sight of the photograph still hanging in the kitchen.

Steve’s never been good at any of this. Sam and Bucky follow after him, asking why he hasn’t done more to get them back. They never leave.

They were supposed to _win_. Together, they were supposed to overcome everything. 

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”

“I know,” Tony murmurs.

His lips brush Steve’s forehead, once. Twice. Just a whisper of skin against skin. With arms that don’t belong to him, Steve winds himself around Tony, dragging him in to bury his face against the centre of his chest. There’s no light anymore, hasn’t been for years, but the relief is still the same. If he closes his eyes, he can feel the warmth of the arc reactor, glowing bright against his cheeks, peeking underneath his eyelids.

When things were simpler.

When everything tasted like honey and nothing hurt. He hadn’t worked so hard to have this, only to be _here._

“What if it never gets any easier?” He feels pathetic even asking, small and childish. Steve hardly recognizes himself when he looks in the mirror anymore. He’s been lost a long time. Adrift.

“It will.” Tony’s assurance wobbles on his tongue. _It has to_ , sits heavy and unspoken between them. “We need to move on Steve. We need to figure out how to have a life now. They’d—” Tony’s voice cracks. “They’d want that, wouldn’t they?”

Steve thinks about Bucky, his eyes shining bright as he stood by Steve’s side and watched them promise to love each other for the rest of their days.

Bucky should be here.

Bucky would punch him and tell him to move on and try living for once in his miserable life.

“Yeah,” Steve admits, defeated. “Yeah, Tony. They would.”

* * *

Steve blinks.

Tony is in the kitchen, humming under his breath. He’s learned to cook over the last few months, and he tosses little bits from the end of a broccoli stalk through the open window. It falls into the pen below, and against the setting sun, Steve can see Gerald’s plume of a head bobbing down to chase after the tiny morsels.

Steve sketches quickly, capturing the way Tony’s hands cut through the air as he tosses little bits and pieces into the stir fry he’s making for dinner. Just like everything else, Tony cooks like he’s putting on a show, and Steve smiles to himself, head ducked low to capture a series of arches that form the curve of Tony’s jaw, the tilt of his head.

“What are you smiling about?” Tony calls from the kitchen, waving a spatula in Steve’s direction.

“You, sweetheart.” _Always you_.

They’ve figured it out by now. They’re happy, as happy as they can be.

Tony’s family has become Steve’s, not that he’s particularly surprised. Tony’s given him everything—a place, a purpose—and his friends have come to love Steve too. In the face of the lost, Steve finds a place that he fits as best he can. 

Happy insists on watching old reruns of Downton Abbey, and when Pepper visits, she covers Steve in blankets when he drifts off on the couch. When he wakes, there’s a marker in his book placed on the coffee table. Pepper smiles across from him in the overstuffed armchair with the same softness he’s seen her offer Tony when he’s passed out on the leather couch in the workshop.

Rhodes becomes Jim, and though he never quite respects Steve’s rank, they get on well enough. They trade war stories, and Steve marvels at how little has really changed after all. He doesn’t visit often; the military is stretched to its limits between emergency relief and rebuilding, but Tony relaxes when he does.

The loss gets smaller every day, still rattling around in his chest but no longer pressing down into that painful, tender spot quite as often. Together they learn how to survive, then sort out how to live again.

Tony _teaches_ him how to live again; part of that teaching is finding limits so Steve never goes to the memorial. They didn’t talk about it, hardly even acknowledged it until the day after the ceremony; when Tony had said in tight words that they already had their own memorial. His eyes flickered to the photo of Peter, and Steve had wanted to sob.

Some days were easier than others. 

“So, Pep wants to come up again in a few weeks. Do you mind?” Tony asks, eyes trained on the sizzle of vegetables. “Happy’s not going to be able to make it this time around, and Rhodey’s still doing whatever it is he’s doing these days.”

“Course, sweetheart. You know I love when she visits.” Steve bites back a grin, then adds, “Maybe I should get the kayaks back out of the shed? It might still be warm by the time she gets here, and you know how much she loves the little island.”

Tony snorts, inevitably sharing in the memory of Pepper’s solo journey out to the little rockpile they’ve called an island. Steve remembers her vividly, stranded in the centre of the lake as her kayak slowly drifted away on the waves. 

“You really want to get on Pepper’s bad side, do you?” 

Steve chomps down on a laugh. It’d been a long time since he’d seen a woman that spitting mad.

“Come over here,” Tony says, reaching out a hand.

Steve sets the drawing aside, half finished, and in a few short steps he’s in Tony’s arms. When Tony kisses him, it tastes like the peanut sauce next to the stove.

“Are you happy?” Steve asks because he can’t help himself. He asks too often these days, but if Tony’s happy, Steve can set the rest aside and try to let himself be happy with him.

“Of course. I have you.” Tony’s lips brush his again. He slips in the tip of his tongue, and Steve tugs him in closer, brushing the pan off the hot element and backing Tony up against the opposite counter with a burst of white-hot desire.

Tony moves like water, flowing around him, going easily when Steve lifts him onto the counter and steps between his legs. His thighs grip like a vice, tugging Steve to him with heels pressed tight into his ass and digging in until Steve can feel Tony, half hard in his jeans, rolling up against him.

“God,” Steve breathes. “Sometimes I still can’t believe you married me.”

Tony chuckles against his lips, grinning into the next series of kisses while fingers trailing up under Steve’s shirt and following the lines up his back. “Not sick of me yet?”

“Never.” Steve’ll swear it again and again, every day until he dies. “Never going to stop loving you. Never going to stop wanting you. Tony, yes—” Steve groans, dropping down to nip where Tony’s neck meets his shoulder as one of Tony’s wandering hands makes its way into the waistband of his jeans.

It feels so good to feel good.

With Tony’s hands on him, Steve can forget for just a little while.

They’re just on vacation, a few steps removed from their responsibilities, and the sun is hot and bright in the sky. When they get home, the team will be there waiting for them, and everything will be back to normal.

With Tony’s hands on him, Steve can pretend.

The world narrows into Tony’s endless eyes and exploring fingers, a heat that sucks him in and wills him to stay. Nothing else matters. 

Tony meets his kisses with increasing urgency until it’s a push-pull of trying to get Steve out of his clothes and inside Tony as quickly as possible. He grunts in frustration when Steve refuses to shove into him with only spit slicking the way, grumbling in Steve’s arms as he plucks Tony off the counter and carries him down the hallway to their bedroom. With dinner forgotten, Steve throws him down on the bed only to cover him again, running a hand up his side just to see him squirm. 

“Yeah, come on,” Tony urges, legs around his hips against as Steve finally shoves a slick finger into him, a bottle of lube rolling along the side of the bed as he gets to work making Tony’s eyes flutter and the tendons in his neck strain. “Steve, please. Hurry, okay? It’s fine, just—”

Steve doesn’t need to be told twice.

“ _Fuck_.”

He sinks in with one fluid motion, shoving one of Tony’s knees up to his chest and watching the breath whoosh out of him. He's tight. It must burn, but the urgency bursts into fierce desperation. Just like that very first time, Steve rolls them over until Tony’s on top of him, helping Tony ride him as if it's their last night on Earth.

Tony’s in his arms, alive and alight with desire, his head hanging low with his wet mouth open, and it’s all Steve’s ever needed. He came so close to losing him, but Tony’s here, now, vibrant and willing in his arms.

“You’re beautiful,” Steve gasps out, and one of Tony’s palms slaps down on his chest as he jerks forward, involuntarily. His eyes light up despite the twist of an almost-shy grin on his lips.

“Don’t get soft on me now, Rogers. Fuck me. Harder. Come on, baby, please, please.”

_Make me feel it_ , Tony doesn’t say, like he has so many times before. They both need this. Something that reminds them they’re here, real and grounded.

Steve plants his feet and drives Tony forward on his chest, taking over and dragging him back onto his cock. Tony moans, low and long, boneless in the face of Steve’s strength.

“Whatever you want.”

Anything Tony wants. Everything.

“Just you, always you, Steve.”

Tony’s breath is coming quicker, the round flesh of his ass perfectly filling Steve’s palms as he urges Tony closer. Little shivers of pleasure race under Tony’s skin until he’s a mess of desire, reaching down to get a hand around his cock. The wet tip rubs up against Steve’s belly every second or third thrust, and it makes his mouth water.

God, it’s miraculous to watch Tony stroke off on him, getting off on the way Steve can toss him around like he’s nothing. Steve knows how he loves it like this—the slick drag of him catching at Tony’s rim when he pulls all the way out just to plough back in.

“That’s it,” Steve urges. “You gonna come for me, sweetheart?”

Tony moans, loud and long, his grip tightening up until only the red flush of his cockhead peaks out between his fingers, dripping a steady stream. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Get me there. Come on, harder. Steve, _harder_.”

Steve pulls him down again and again, his own release hanging on the knife’s edge, just outside of his reach. “Tony. Tony, come on. Just wanna see you—the look on your face, please just—”

Tony comes with a gasp, going rigid in his arms as he comes all over Steve’s belly. That’s all Steve needs to tip over the edge. It’s the nirvana across Tony’s face and the hot cavern of his ass tightening up around him and Steve’s gone, pumping into him until he can’t stand it. The aftershocks ripple like bolts of lightning low in his belly.

Tony rolls off him, dragging the duvet up over them both. He curls towards Steve with one arm under the pillow and his cheeks rosy-red. “That was unexpected. Dinner’s going to be cold now.”

Steve laughs, brushing a hand through his sweaty hair with a little half shrug. “Well, when the mood strikes, it strikes.”

“Oh, is that how it is? I’ll give you something to strike, Rogers.” Tony growls a little in his chest, and Steve smacks an open palm down on his ass. 

God, he’s missed this. The joy. The laughter. Everything feels bright and boisterous. Steve curls in towards it, tugging Tony up against his chest to bury his face in his hair.

“Are you happy, Steve?”

This time, he can be honest. “I am. Really.”

Tony traces a finger over his collarbone. He looks abruptly uncertain, and Steve frowns slightly, knocking their foreheads together lightly.

“What is it?”

“I want to ask you something. We haven’t talked much about it in a while, but—”

“Just ask me.” Steve props himself up on one arm, watching uncertainty slash across Tony’s face. “Tony, what?”

“I think I still want kids.” It comes out in a rush, a blurt across their comforter, and once he’s spoken it aloud, Tony’s eyes go wide and surprised, as if he can’t believe he’s said it. “I know a lot has changed, but I keep thinking—”

“You want kids,” Steve cuts him off, and Tony nods.

“After we lost Peter, I didn’t think I would. But I do. I really do, Steve.”

Something cold and dark takes over in Steve’s belly, a tight fist wrapped around his insides, squeezing. The words are out of his mouth before he can stop himself. “Kids won’t bring Peter back, Tony.”

“What?” Tony jerks back as if Steve’s slapped him. His face tightens up, and he tugs the sheet up higher, like some second line of defense. As soon as he’s said it, Steve wants to take it back.

It’s not what he meant. “Tony—”

“I’m not trying to bring Peter back. I’m not trying to—to replace him. Nothing could ever—” Tony’s voice shakes, and he swallows, hard. Steve’s aghast to find tears in Tony’s eyes, and the apologies can’t come quick enough.

“I didn’t mean—”

“I want a family. With you, you asshole. I’m not trying to replace him. Nothing could _ever_ replace him. How could you even—”

“I’m sorry!” The words are almost a shout because he is, and Tony’s gearing up for a fight. The kind of fight where he’s hurt and ready to dig in deep, but it’s not worth it. After everything, it's not worth it. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—I’m sorry. You caught me off guard, and I didn’t mean that.”

In all reality, Steve can’t imagine another loss. The way he’d fallen in love with Peter had been immediate and surprising. This young man, so uncertain, so desperate for affection and praise, and Steve had loved him just as much as Tony had.

To love another kid—to _lose_ another kid.

Steve would rather take his own shield to the chest.

“If you don’t want to…” Tony trails off, searching Steve’s face with uncertainty.

“What if something happens? To us. To _them_.” Giving voice to it makes his chest ache, and Steve tightens his fist in the blankets. Tony, still teaching him lessons in vulnerability.

“Oh, honey. Honey, no. You can’t think like that.”

“I can’t lose another one of our kids, Tony.”

Tony shifts back into his arms, fingers on his face, stroking his cheeks, his mouth. “Okay. Okay, I know. It’s terrifying, but we’ve done a lot of terrifying things, haven’t we, Steve? I can’t explain it, but this feels right. I’m not saying you have to decide right now, but will you think about it?”

“Yeah, let me think about it,” Steve murmurs. “I did always think you’d make a wonderful father.”

“Flatterer.” Tony pecks his lips and doesn’t let him go for a long while.

* * *

Steve blinks.

Sweat trickles down the back of his neck, and nervous energy rushes through him like fissions of energy up and down his spine. There’s waiting, and then there’s _waiting_. Right now, Steve is waiting and unable to do a damned thing.

He paces back and forth across the room, watching Tony at Pepper’s head, stroking back the wet hair falling low across her forehead. There’s a beautiful red flush to her skin, and if she wasn’t in intermittent bursts of pain, Steve might have told her this was the most beautiful he’d ever seen her.

Pregnancy suited Pepper. In the last few months, she’d grown round and soft with their baby—a little girl, though Steve still wasn’t sure he could believe it. Even when she was uncomfortable, even when she was snapping at Tony and ordering him about, she was perfect.

Sometimes, Steve could hardly believe this was real. When he thought about it too long, it seemed like a fantasy. People didn’t just offer up their bodies to their friends the way Pepper had, but she’d offered and followed through nonetheless. Tony had been right again.

They were going to have this. Pepper was giving them this.

“Steve, stop pacing,” Pepper says, voice tight with strain as another wave of contractions ripple through her. “You’re making my head spin.”

Their midwife, Anita, is a kindly looking older woman with steady hands, and she gives him a knowing look that leaves embarrassment prickling on the back of his neck. He’s being ridiculous. Women give birth every day. An infinite number of parents raise happy, healthy children, but he’s scared.

Now that it’s happening, Steve is terrified.

“Sorry,” he mumbles under his breath, and Pepper gives him the same soft smile. Exhaustion weighs heavy in her shoulders, dropping forward in another brief moment of rest.

They’re fewer and further between now. Their daughter will be here soon.

“You sure that isn’t the pain meds?” Tony asks, and Pepper snatches a hand out and grabs his arm, hauling him forward with surprising strength.

“You think this is funny?” She demands. Tony’s eyes go comically wide, and he looks at Steve for some form of back up. Steve just shakes his head; Tony’s gone and done it this time.

“Pep—Pep, ow!” Tony winces, forced to lean into her grip as her nails dig into his forearm.

“You damn well know I haven’t had any drugs. I don’t _want_ to have any drugs, but if he doesn’t stop pacing and if you don’t get this fucking baby out of me right now, Tony Stark, I swear to God I’m going to—”

Pepper breaks off with a loud groan that turns into a scream, and the midwife settles peaceably between her legs. “Alright, honey, alright. Not long now. Pops, why don’t you get up there and hold her other hand, huh?”

Steve startles, looking from the midwife to Pepper to Tony. They’d just agreed on that name last night and to hear it from someone else—

“Tony, did you—”

“Of course, I told them! You heard the woman. Get up here, Pops.” Tony waves him forward as Pepper gives a wet laugh from one contraction to the next.

He feels rooted to the spot. He’s not certain he can move or breathe.

“Steve, no offense, but I’d really feel more comfortable with you at my head,” Pepper says, and he snaps back to himself, forcing his feet to move until he’s got her other hand in both of his. They flank her on either side, and over the top of her head, Tony smiles at him.

“Alright, momma, that’s just right. Push now, give me a nice, hard push.”

Pepper wails through a series of vicious pushes. Her body contracts and goes rigid, the tendons all along her body straining with effort. For a moment it doesn’t look like she’ll be successful, collapsing back against the pillows with a little sob that makes Steve’s heart ache for her, but the next wave comes on quickly. She rears back forward, gripping them both until Tony is cursing under his breath and curling around her, a hand on her back as if he can somehow help her through this.

“Keep going, you’re close now,” Anita says. Steve can’t understand how she remains so calm and collected when it feels like his skin is ready to get up and walk right off his bones. When he steals another glance at Tony, he looks as dumbfounded as Steve.

“I’m not doing this again,” Pepper snaps, head whipping between them. “Never again, you hear me?”

“I know, I know,” Tony quiets, rubbing circles on her back. “Never again. You can do this though. You’re invincible, you’re fantastic, you’re—”

Pepper clenches up again, and Anita gives them a nod that steals Tony’s breath away. From one moment to the next, there’s a baby in her arms. It’s not nearly as magical as Steve’s been led to believe, but it’s real and she’s theirs, so it’s enough. When Anita settles her on Pepper’s chest, crying with healthy, heaving sobs, Steve immediately curls the blanket around them, a hand over Pepper’s, over Tony’s.

“Pepper,” Tony says with quiet amazement. “Pepper, you did it. You did it, honey.”

Emotions well up inside Steve, and he chokes back a sob. Pepper’s tired eyes flicker up, and they’re glowing with all the love and joy that Steve feels. “Thank you,” he whispers. “Pepper, thank you.”

“Take her,” Pepper says, already shifting their daughter towards him. “Go on, she’s yours. This is what you’ve been waiting for.”

“Tony—” Steve can’t take her. She’s so small and delicate, a dark flush red with a shock of brown hair on the crown of her head. She’d be even smaller cupped in Steve’s massive palms, and he can’t possibly hold something so fragile.

“It’s alright,” Anita reassures him, and Steve blinks at her, standing steadily at his side. She reaches down with a fresh blanket and takes their baby off Pepper’s chest, wrapping her up before placing her gently into his arms.

Tony steps around the bed, one hand on Steve’s bicep and the other brushing over their daughter’s hair. He’s crying too, big, messy tears flowing freely down his cheeks.

“This is our daughter.” Tony looks at him, shaking his head and grinning in a way Steve hasn’t seen since their wedding day. “This is our daughter, Steve.”

Steve bites down on his lip, unable to tear his eyes away. “Morgan,” he whispers. “Welcome to the world, Morgan.”

* * *

Steve blinks.

Morgan becomes a small version of Tony before Steve can even process she’s entered their lives. Every day is a whirlwind of growth and discovery as she learns about the world around her. She learns to walk and talk sooner than she should, not that it comes to either of their surprise. Tony Stark is her father, and Steve would have expected nothing less.

Their days turn into a steady routine of keeping Morgan safe and entertained. As she grows, Tony grows along with her, and Steve finds himself discovering new things about Tony he’d never known before.

He learns that Tony can create masterful stories off the top of his head that keep Morgan’s attention for hours. He learns that Tony can design safety items far better than anything on the market, and that Tony becomes so in tune with Morgan he can predict a tantrum before it happens. The fear of becoming his father disintegrates with time, and Tony softens, becoming the gentle, guiding hand that she flourishes under with more love than any child would ever need.

He watches, smiling a little as Tony shows her how to peel the sections of a clementine apart. The fruit squishes in Morgan’s pudgy fingers, but she gets the hang of it on the second one. The first slips around her plastic plate, and some lands on the floor for Steve to tend to later.

“That’s it, Maguna. You’ve got it.” Tony sounds as proud as he’ll be on the day she learns to ride a bike. It’s something so simple, but everything she does is amazing. “Now, you eat it, or I’ll eat all the fruits and there will never be any left for you again, ever.”

Morgan giggles and shoves a piece into her mouth, considering the rest thoughtfully. “Here, Daddy,” Morgan says, offering up a piece to Tony.

He leans in and takes it from her hand, nipping her fingers as he does, and she shrieks with laughter, squirming in the high chair.

“Did he get you?” Steve asks with mock shock, plucking her hand up off the table and inspecting it closely. “Did he eat your fingers off?”

“No, Pops! Here, see?” Morgan holds out a piece for Tony again, and he takes it with the same animation that sets off another series of giggles.

Tony looks up at Steve, and there’s something mischievous in his gaze. “Now one for Pops, kiddo.”

Morgan holds out another section, and Steve follows suit, slurping the edges of her fingers, sticky with fruit juice and basking in her joy. “Now you, Dad! Now you!”

There aren’t any more pieces left on the plate, so Tony plucks another clementine from the basket of fruit on the table and carefully peels back the skin. He separates it into two halves, laying one down for Morgan to pull apart before he peels off a piece from his own.

He offers it to Steve with an age-old smile. Steve leans in and takes it, licking the tips of his fingers and watching Tony’s eyes go soft and wistful. It feels as if he’s floating, and Tony is the only thing keeping him pinned down. Without him, Steve could simply float away. 

“This is real, right?” Steve asks, abruptly, swallowing around bursts of citrus. “I’m not imagining this. This is really our life now?”

Tony reaches across the small space between them and lays a hand over his. It feels like safety and home and everything that Steve’s ever dreamed of having. The warmth of his hand and the roughness of his calluses are familiar and welcomed. “It’s real,” Tony says. “Steve, it’s everything.”

* * *

Steve blinks.

The moment Natasha and Scott step out of the car and make their way up the front steps, Steve knows something is wrong. Natasha looks grim, but she smiles at Morgan and ruffles her hair. They haven’t seen them in months, and he finds himself wondering why they’d left Bruce behind.

“We need your help,” Natasha says, leaning a hip against the railing.

“No. We can’t.” The words are out of Steve’s mouth too soon, and Tony’s head whips around to stare at him, surprised.

“Steve.” Tony says it like an admonishment and Steve gives him a look. “They haven’t even said what they need our help with.”

“It’s too big a risk. We have Morgan now, Tony, and we’re retired. We have to think about what’s best for Morgan. It’s not just you and me anymore, and the others—”

“We wouldn’t be here if there were anyone else,” Scott cuts in. He’s twitchy and awkward. It makes Steve grit his teeth and shove his hands into his pockets, going for an air of casual he doesn’t feel. He shoots a sharp look at Morgan when she appears back in the doorway, and she scampers into the house.

“Let’s hear them out.” Tony waves them over, and when they sit down, it feels like the beginning of the end.

They don’t have to say much to get Tony on board, and maybe that’s Steve’s fault. When Natasha and Scott eventually leave and Morgan is tucked into bed, Tony sits close to him on the couch and pets a hand along one of his thighs.

“If there’s a chance, we have to try, Steve.”

“No, we don’t.”

“You’ve been the one saying all along that as long as we’re together, it’ll be fine. This is another one of those moments. We got lucky, and Morgan, hell, she’s everything. She’s perfect, and this life we’ve made together is just as perfect. But not everyone was so lucky.”

Steve gives in because he has to. He’s given Tony all the right answers, and Steve understands how they got here. It was inevitable. Maybe it always was and he’s not surprised that he missed it. 

When they fall into bed that night, Steve waits as long as he can before he closes his eyes.

* * *

Steve blinks.

“Morgan?” He asks as Tony steps through the doorway to their old bedroom at the Compound. Steve’s already in bed, pajama covered legs tucked under the blanket, bare-chested. Exhaustion is purple underneath Tony’s eyes, but his gaze is soft.

“Already asleep. Pep’s going to be with her.”

Steve gives him a dubious look but holds out his hand anyway. If they’re going to try and save the world again, there’s little more he can do with the nerves, and he never slept well the night before a mission anyway. He knows Morgan will always be safe, Pepper and Rhodey are more than enough protection. Tony has outfitted them with armour that rivals his own.

“You’re worried,” Tony says, crawling into his lap, legs splayed across him.

“You’re not?”

Tony shakes his head, head tipped to one side. “Always together, right?”

“Right.”

Steve shoves aside the fear and drags Tony down for a kiss, licking into his mouth and tasting coffee and something sweet. Chocolate maybe. It gives him away; Tony only ever dives into the chocolate when he’s worried.

It only makes Steve kiss him deeper, pulling him closer as if he could tug him inside his chest and keep him safe. Keep them all safe.

They might be able to bring them all back. Morgan would have her uncles. A brother in Peter, even. But if they fail, they’ll lose everything. Steve will lose everything. This perfect little family they’ve created in the face of destruction, reduced to ashes. 

“Tony,” Steve husks against his mouth, tugging him back by the short strands of his hair. Tony’s eyes are glassy and raw, so incredibly open.

“I don’t want to talk anymore, Steve. I just want to feel you. Can we just—”

“Yeah, yeah Tony.”

Tony tugs his shirt over his head, reaching between them to get a firm grip on Steve’s cock and stroke him through his sleep pants. Their fingers tangle together as Steve tries to help him push them off, and then they’re laughing between kisses that smear and slide against each other.

It’s all the touches and tastes Steve’s ever loved about him and more.

Tony finally wriggles Steve’s pants off and fists him again, sliding the tip of his cock against his hole dry, moaning when it catches against the rim in that way that drives Steve wild. 

“Not tonight,” Steve says with a hand on his chest to stop him. He half-rolls under Tony’s weight and fumbles for the lube under the pillows, pushing it into Tony’s hands with a small smile. “If there’s even a chance this is our last night on earth, you damn well better make it count.”

“Don’t talk like that.” The words are sharp, but Tony’s hands are soft.

Tony slides down and kneels between his thighs where Steve spreads his legs a little wider, relishing the masterpiece that is Tony Stark curved over his cock, lips shiny with spit and fingers glistening with lube.

“We’ve got all the time in the world. We’ve got a daughter to raise, and you promised me forever, husband of mine.” The last word is pointed, and Steve could cry, laughing around the thick knot in his throat.

It’s a chaos of emotions, and Steve can’t contain them all, gasping when Tony’s thick fingers breach him and start stretching his rim. Tony’s always in a hurry, but now he moves slowly, letting Steve feel every drive of his fingers against his prostate, every slide of a fingertip around the circle of his hole.

“Tony, don’t tease.” Steve grips his wrist and fucks himself down onto his fingers, watching Tony’s eyes dance with heat as he does. “I want you in me. Sweetheart, please.”

“You beg so pretty,” Tony tells him, curling over him and lining up for that first, slow glide. When Tony finally sinks into him, Steve arches up into it, opening himself as a home to Tony’s body. Tony’s given him everything, and Steve wants to feed it all back to him.

“Please,” Steve says again, letting the words spill out of him because Tony loves to hear him. Tony, the loud one, but over the years he’s learned exactly what makes Steve squirm and gasp until the pleas are spilling from his lips.

Tony bites down on one of Steve’s nipples and another exclamation escapes him.

“Oh, darling you’re perfect like this. Gonna fuck you every day for the rest of our lives. It’s such a beautiful life, Steve Rogers. You’ve given me such a beautiful life.”

The words feel like a goodbye, and Steve claws back the sob bubbling in his throat. Without warning he rolls Tony over, pressing him down into the mattress, covering Tony’s lips with his own to cut off the whispers.

He wants to live in this moment with the tickle of Tony’s hairy calves against the top of his feet, the feeling of Tony’s fingers digging into his thighs. There are never any bruises, but Steve wants him to dig his nails in deep enough to pierce skin if only Tony will leave his mark for a little while.

_Such a beautiful life_.

“I love you,” Steve says, ragged against his mouth, and he starts to ride him at a brutal, unforgiving pace. Tony’s under him, inside him. All around him. “Tony, I love you. You’re everything. _Everything_.”

“Don’t let go, Steve. No matter what, we’ll get them back together. Always together. You’re always saying that.” Tony laughs a little, short and sweet. “I don’t even remember when it started but I believe it now. Just don’t let me go, okay? Promise me you won’t let me go.”

The words don’t even make sense. He doesn’t know what Tony’s talking about, but he digs his hands into his chest, right where the arc reactor once was, and fucks down onto him harder, faster, milking Tony for everything he’s got because if it’s their last night on Earth, he’ll be damned if Tony doesn’t fill him full to the brim. He makes a dozen silent promises, and if he were still a religious man, Steve would pray.

Tony’s back bows and he groans, bucking up underneath him, hips slotting into place as he squeezes his eyes shut and comes. Steve can’t stop staring at him.

Tony’s right. They’ve had a perfect, beautiful life.

“Never, Tony. I’ll never let you go.”

Steve comes with Tony’s name on his lips.

* * *

Steve blinks.

They get them back. Bucky and Sam. Vision and Wanda. Peter Parker in the suit he and Tony had built together from scratch. The portals open behind them and for one brief, perfect second, everyone is home.

Steve catches sight of Tony across the battlefield, whooping with joy with Peter in his arms before Bucky comes barrelling towards him, rifle pointed at the ground. The metal arm slaps hard on his back as Bucky embraces him. Steve breathes for the first time in half a decade.

“Gotta stop meeting like this,” Bucky says gruffly in his ear, and Steve laughs. The sky opens, teaming with another invasion, but Steve just laughs and laughs.

“You gotta stop disappearing on me, Buck.”

“What’d I miss, punk?” Bucky’s eyes are already on the horizon, shoulders braced for a fight. Behind him, the suit is rushing forward over Tony’s face again, and he turns toward Steve, expectant.

“I have a daughter.”

Bucky beams. “No fucking shit.”

They assemble.

They’re going to win.

_Snap_.

They do win.

Tony dies anyway.

* * *

Steve blinks.

“Peter, get the gauntlet!”

Peter swings through the air, unsteady as the webbing attaches to the bottom of one of the airborne aliens and is abruptly sliced through. The whole scene happens in slow motion. Tony, reaching for the gauntlet, hand outstretched as Peter intercepts him, dodging through the fray.

“Got it, Cap!”

“What are you doing? Peter!” Tony sounds outraged, but Steve ignores him. As long as he doesn’t get his hands on it, Steve can fix this.

Steve doesn’t let him get anywhere near it, dipping and weaving through the battle. Aliens drop around him, but he knows what’s coming if he fails. He knocks Tony aside with the shield, and for a brief moment, he thinks Tony might blast him. The mask hides his expression, but Steve can hear him shouting inside the armour. He can practically see the ferocious flames in his eyes. 

Peter gets the gauntlet in his webs, and then it’s in Captain Marvel’s arms. Before he can blink, it’s wrapping around Bruce, molding to his charred, burnt arm.

“Bruce, no, you won’t survive a second time!” Tony’s blasting through the sky, a beautiful streak of red and gold against the grey horizon.

An alien dog smashes into Steve from the side, and his vision tilts as he hits the ground, hard. Time stands still in the moments he tries to fight his way free. A series of bullets rain down overhead, and Bucky’s at his side, metal fingers digging into his bicep as he’s hauled to his feet.

The adrenaline in his veins is liquid nitrogen. Tony’s at Bruce’s side, wrestling the gauntlet off him as Bruce howls in pain. Tony, always so goddamn self-sacrificing. He doesn’t ever stand down.

Steve throws the shield before he can think. He misses.

Tony whips around, and Steve sees the look on his face. Determined. Furious. “Stop! Steve, what the fuck! I have to do this!”

“Steve, stop!” Bucky gets in his path, hands on his shoulders holding him back.

“Tony, don’t! Please don’t!”

Bruce is flat on his ass on the ground, arm freshly burnt to hell. Peter’s aghast, eyes whipping between them as Tony raises his hand and—

“Mr. Stark!”

_Snap_.

Tony dies anyway.

* * *

Steve blinks.

They’re fighting each other. Steve’s wrestled Tony to the ground, bursting the repulsors in his palms to bits as Tony fires up his boots and tries to blast free. The mask is blown to hell, and Tony’s eyes are half-feral with disbelief.

“You can’t do this!” Steve keeps screaming it, over and over again. “You can’t do this! Don’t fucking do this!”

“What the fuck are you doing?!” Steve ignores him, knocking his feet out from underneath him the second he’s upright again. “Steve, stop! Stop!”

The suit takes the weight of his fall, but in that split second, Steve can almost get his hand around the gauntlet. It’s just out of reach, beyond both their grasp. Steve struggles through the dirt, mud in his mouth and Tony’s hands clawing at his sides.

The battle rages on around them, but it’s like they’re the only two people that exist. They reach for the gauntlet together. Steve slams an elbow into Tony’s chest, forcing him back.

Almost there. Almost—

Peter ducks in from his left, and before he can warn Peter off, his hand is inside the gauntlet, molding to his fingers. Beams of light travel up his arm, and Peter shrieks, eyes wide with horror and bright, sharp pain.

“No! Peter! Goddamn you, Steve!” Tony blasts him, a beam right from the centre of the suit, and Steve flies halfway across the battlefield. His vision crackles with sparks, and he’s too far away. He stumbles to his feet, racing across the field, but he’s already too late. 

He watches with his breath in his throat as Tony pry the gauntlet off Peter’s wrist. Tony slides it down his own, Peter half collapsed against his chest.

Tony’s on his knees. Peter’s unconscious in the dirt.

Tony looks at him. He stares right into Steve’s eyes. 

_Snap_.

Tony dies anyway.

* * *

Steve blinks.

Tony stands at his side, the gauntlet on his wrist. It’s been too many times and too many ways, and Steve is tired. Every time he tries to prevent this, Tony dies anyway.

This is the last go. His final attempt.

The streak of electric colours darts up Tony’s arm and onto his shoulder. The side of his face is alight and on fire. His eyes burn brighter still and when he meets Steve’s eyes, they’re terrified and wild. It’s as if he already knows he’s staring down the barrel and he’s ready to die.

Tony, laying down on the wire. Every single time. How could Steve have ever thought differently?

Steve grabs his hand.

“Steve, no—”

The air around them crackles and the liquid fire races through Tony and into Steve. The pain is instant and all-consuming. He doesn’t know how Tony can stand it. It’s like they’ve been plugged right into the New York energy grid and Steve feels his heart skip beats in his chest. His skin burns and he can smell them, the charred flesh of Tony’s wrist and their joined palms where Steve grips him and refuses to let go.

“I love you,” Steve forces out through gritted teeth. “Always together. _Always_.”

“You—” Tony shudders, his body going rigid and he convulses like he’s touched a live wire. The live wire is plugged right into his goddamn arm. “Don’t let me go, Steve.”

“Never.”

_Snap_.

Tony collapses into his arm and the pain stops. The gauntlet falls away, dropping into the dirt where they fall, Tony on top of him. Steve can’t breathe, but he can feel Tony gasping, little hitching breaths. In his arms, Tony’s face is burnt. His beautiful, beautiful face, skin raw and blistered. His hair is flickering with embers and Steve runs a hand over it, through it.

They’ve done it.

“You did it,” Steve breathed, hand on Tony’s unmarred cheek. “Tony, you did it!”

“We did it,” Tony says weakly.

Peter lands next to them, dropping down into a crouch and scrambling across the dirt until he can get an arm around them both. His eyes scan Tony’s face, look into Steve’s eyes. He chokes on a sob and collapses into Steve, too.

Bucky and Sam pull up the back, a hand on each of his shoulders.

Thanos disappears. Everything goes silent, cut through with the murmur of disbelief. This must be what victory sounds like.

“I knew it.” Steve kisses him, tasting blood in their mouths but it hardly matters. “Together. I knew it, Tony. We had to do it together, don’t you see?”

Tony reaches up to brush a hand through his hair but before it touches him, it twitches and falls away. “St—”

“Tony? Tony!” Tony stares at him, wide-eyed, before he starts to convulse. His body bends and shakes at inhuman angles and Steve can’t look away when he starts to gasp, ugly, disturbing sounds wretched from his throat. “Fuck. Fuck, no. Tony, no! Please, no. We did it. You did it. Tony!”

It doesn’t matter. The convulsions stop, but Tony is gone.

Tony dies anyway.

* * *

Steve blinks and keeps blinking. The tears fall freely over his face, and no matter how many times he closes his eyes, all he can see is Tony.

Tony’s limp body still feels heavy in his arms, even more unbearable under the weight of Peter’s disbelief as he staggers to his knees next to them. When Peter curls over them, his desperate pleas echo in the silence but Steve can’t think of a damn thing to say. 

He never has any words for Peter. No matter how many times he runs the loop and Tony dies in his arms, Steve can’t ever bring himself to look Peter in the eye.

A hand tugs Steve forward before he can start the next sequence.

“Christ! How do you turn this thing off?”

He falls hard to his knees, gasping as he pitches out of the chair. He’s been sitting long enough that when the glasses are ripped off his face, nausea bubbles up and the abrupt bright lights blind him. 

For a moment, Steve’s completely disoriented. His nails scramble against the floor as he tries to reach for the glasses. He has to go back. He has to try again because maybe this time he’ll get it right. One of these times, he’s got to be able to get it right. 

“Goddamn it, Steve. What the hell are you doing to yourself down here?” Steve barely sees Bucky as tears mix with the blurred specks now dancing across his vision. 

“Nothing,” Steve says, like a reflex. “Nothing. I was just—”

Steve clenches his hands into fists and looks down at his fingers. There’s no wedding ring. Where is his wedding ring?

He looks up at Bucky to ask, but the sleek, black arm stops him short. It isn’t the light silver of the Stark Tech he remembers.

It’s not the arm that Tony had built him from scratch.

“Yeah, I know what you were doing.” Bucky’s voice is a controlled growl, laced with disapproval that Steve isn’t prepared to face. Bucky must’ve seen some of it before he’d pulled him out but before he can think about what that means, the room changes.

The battlefield starts to fade away and Tony’s body drifts into nothingness. The last thing Steve sees is the blank, unseeing darkness of his eyes before the scene peels back like the nanites of the Iron Man suit, leaving the room a crisp, stark white.

Steve sits back and bites down on the inside of his cheek. Now it’s just to two of them, him and Bucky, together on the floor in painful technicolour.

“Oh, God,” Steve whispers under his breath.

“He wouldn’t want this.” Bucky’s voice is already softening but it wavers with carefully checked anger, as if he thinks Steve can’t tolerate being yelled at now.

They’ve been treating Steve with kid gloves since the battle, tiptoeing around him in the same way he’d watched everyone tiptoe around Pepper. Maybe what Steve deserves is to be yelled at. Bucky’s never shied away from setting him straight before.

Yet Bucky holds back now, his only tell in the harsh grip he keeps on Steve’s arm. His fingers bite into Steve’s flesh but the hurt feels grounding. It forces Steve to acknowledge that this is real. Even when he looks away, Bucky is still there in front of him.

“I just thought that if I tried—”

“You’ve been down here before,” Bucky cuts him off. “Don’t try to tell me this is the first time—we don’t do that with each other. I really thought this was helping you, at first, but this isn’t right. It’s not healthy.”

Steve tugs at his arm but Bucky holds firm. “It’s not a big deal.”

He’s only just realizing how weak he feels. Steve’s stomach is hollow and empty, his body the same bone-tired from hours of battle. It’s impossible to say how long he’s been down here, and Steve doesn’t know that he wants the answer. 

“You’re losin’ it, Steve. You’re supposed to be the sane one of the two of us, but you’re—this stuff ain’t real. You’re living in a fantasy down here and that’s only going to end in more hurt.”

Steve forces himself to look up. The pity in Bucky’s eyes stirs the nausea in his stomach. “Some of it was real.”

All the memories are clear in Steve’s mind as if they’d happened yesterday. He can taste Tony’s lips, smeared with honey, and feel the secure vice of Tony’s arm wrapped around his waist as they roll through the sky. He remembers saying goodbye to Peggy together and the way Tony had loved Bucky even after everything.

Some of them may be fuzzier than others, with that sheen of uncertainty at the edges, but that doesn’t make them any less real. Not to Steve.

When he eyes the glasses on the floor between them, Bucky clocks his gaze and snatches them off the floor. The plastic whines in his fist.

“How long have you been down here?” Bucky asks. “How long have you been doing this to yourself?”

“I don’t know.”

“F.R.I.D.A.Y.? How long?”

“Steve has been using the retro-framing program for almost sixty consecutive hours, Bucky.” F.R.I.D.A.Y. says. She sounds sad. Steve didn’t know a computer could sound like that.

He knows he should feel humiliated. With both feet planted in reality, this should feel pathetic and shameful, but Steve can’t force himself to care. He’s stopped caring about a great many things over the past few weeks, and this is just another one to add to the list.

“I’ll stop,” Steve says. “I’ll be more careful.”

Bucky doesn’t bite. “This isn’t processing or reliving memories Steve. I saw what you were… creating. It’s not even half of what happened and this is just—Christ, this is torture.”

“It’s not.” Steve searches his useless brain for some sort of explanation but there’s nothing he can do to explain this away. There’s no way to know how much Bucky has seen. “I’m just—I’m trying to figure out how to let him go.”

Steve can’t bring himself to say Tony’s name.

The fingers digging into his arm grow exponentially tighter. “That’s what you’re going with?”

“Bucky—”

“Sixty goddamn hours. Fuck. I had no idea it had gotten this bad.”

Steve thinks of Tony, hands on his hips, begging Steve not to let him go. “I made him a promise, Buck. I promised him we’d figure it out and I just—I thought, maybe if I could just—”

“You didn’t promise him anything because it wasn’t _real_.”

Steve shakes his head and doesn’t stop shaking it. He can see their wedding rings, shining bright against Tony’s olive skin. He remembers the shine in Tony’s eyes the day he married him and the disbelief before the awe set in on the afternoon Morgan was born.

It was as real as Bucky is now.

“Will you stop saying that! It _was_ real. I remember—”

“F.R.I.D.A.Y.,” Bucky interrupts sharply. “Pull up a picture of the Starks.”

Steve’s blood runs cold.

On the far wall, a picture focuses. It’s blown up, touching from the floor to the ceiling and every inch makes Steve ache. Tony is smiling, salt and pepper hair and soft brown eyes, his arm around Pepper with Morgan standing between them. She has the peace sign held up in a little mimicry of Tony’s signature pose and they look like the proudest parents Steve’s ever seen.

“Please don’t,” Steve says.

A sob breaks free and Steve hadn’t even realized he was holding them back. His throat feels perpetually raw these days because when the sobs come, they don’t stop. He presses his fingers into his eyes but when he closes them, Tony is still there.

Tony and Morgan sharing pieces of fruit and reading bedtime stories. Tony tossing bits of food out the window to that damned alpaca. Kayaking, side-by-side through the water in the early days of autumn. It’s all there in his mind.

“You lied to him,” Bucky says. “You never told him what I did to his parents, and then when the Accords happened, you fought. He left you after that. He married Pepper and they had their little girl. That’s what was real, Steve.”

And Steve… Steve remembers.

He sees the hurt in Tony’s eyes, filled with tears and betrayal as the video of his parent’s death plays on a loop. He remembers the day Ross came and he didn’t back down; the fight they’d had at Clint’s farmhouse and going to bed alone with only his secrets for comfort.

He remembers raising the shield and—

“Please,” Steve repeats, desperate now.

“Tony’s dead. You can’t change what you did and you can’t bring him back. You need to start accepting that.”

Bucky eyes the retro-framing glasses again, glaring at them like a poisonous snake and not the last precious link Steve has to Tony. When he snaps them, the plastic shatters and glass rains down over the tiled floor.

Steve knocks his hand off his chest. “There are other sets.”

The words hang like a childish threat between them until Bucky nods, resigned. “Yeah, sure. There are other sets. You could try it again, if you really wanted to. But Tony would be ashamed of this. He’d be so ashamed, if he could see you right now.”

“You don’t know what he’d—”

“And I think he’d thank me for this, Stevie,” Bucky goes on, as if Steve hasn’t spoken at all. “He gave up everything so we could live and this isn’t living. Not even close. He’d thank me and you know what? I can make my peace with that.”

Steve searches Bucky’s face, looking for some place that might give but Bucky isn’t fighting. He’s not going to hold him down or block his path. He just sits there, waiting, and Steve knows he won’t be able to make Bucky understand.

There aren’t any words to explain how this is the last remaining thing Steve has that doesn’t make him want to lie down and die on that battlefield with Tony. The fight bleeds out of him and he chokes on a fresh sob, crumpling in on himself with his fists pressed to his face. If he were still small, Steve would crawl under the chair and stay there, safe from Bucky’s steady, unwavering gaze and the reality that he can’t do a damned thing about any of this.

“Okay. I know.” Bucky says gently. His footsteps retreat and a few moments later there’s a blanket draped around Steve’s shoulders. “It’s going to be alright. F.R.I.D.A.Y., get Jim on the line for me, will you?”

Bucky fishes his phone out of his pocket and brings it to his ear. Steve tries to ignore him, fixing his gaze on the mess of broken glass. He can’t look at Bucky, and he can’t look at the photo of Tony and the perfect family Steve never had with him.

“It’s not good,” Bucky is saying. “I think Pepper is going to need to come down here—I know she doesn’t want to come, damn it, but he’s not—I’ve tried, Jim. You don’t think I haven’t tried that? I need her to issue the override code. She’s the only one that can shut it down—you haven’t seen him. You don’t know how bad it’s gotten.” Steve shivers, drawing the blankets around his shoulders. 

It was only a matter of time, really.

He could keep shouting at Bucky for interfering, or beg him for another sequence. Just one last time to go through the memories; the real ones, even. But the exhaustion sets in and Bucky’s an immovable force when he wants to be. Steve already knows he won’t budge.

He also knows that tonight, when he sleeps, the memories will come back just as strong and he’ll dream of Tony. He’ll dream of citrus and two sparkling set of brown eyes—a reprieve from the nightmares of carrying Tony off the battlefield, limp and cold in his arms.

“Stevie. Steve, are you listening to me?”

“What?” Steve asks, flatly, trying to focus.

“Jim’s going to bring Pepper up tonight and they’re going to lock down B.A.R.F.”

“Sure, Bucky.” Steve smiles at the floor, forcing the muscles in his cheeks into the unfamiliar position. “Whatever you gotta do.”

“Steve—”

“He would’ve loved you, you know.” Steve’s not an idiot. When the curtain of confusion parts, and he has both feet on solid ground, Steve knows how much of all of this was real. “I wasn’t always so sure, but I think I know that now.”

“Okay, pal.” Bucky settles in beside him, a warm line that does little to thaw the chill setting in. “I’m sure we would’ve gotten along just fine.”

“I really am sorry,” Steve says.

They both know it’s a lie, but this time Bucky doesn’t call him on it. When Bucky doesn’t respond, Steve closes his eyes, turning as far away as he can.

* * *

Steve doesn’t wait for Pepper to come. He can’t bear to see the pain in her eyes. They’ve both lost Tony, but Pepper’s grief is intolerable.

She’d had him longer, and she’d live on with a part of him forever. She had him in a way that Steve never did, and the resentment breeding in his stomach has spent weeks clawing its way to the surface. Pepper got to have that perfect, beautiful life and Steve can’t find it in himself to acknowledge her loss in the face of his own.

Now, Steve shucks his clothes slowly. His arms feel like dead weight, going through the motions to pull his shirt over his head and unbutton his jeans. He makes his way over to the solitary dresser against the far wall and digs around in his sock drawer until his fingers touch metal. Even in the time he was away, Tony had never moved it and now, Steve cherishes the old arc reactor like a precious gift. Sometime soon he’ll need to find a better hiding place for this.

He cradles his last link to Tony in his palms and crawls into his too-big bed. When he curls under the duvet, he draws his knees to his chest and pulls the blanket over his head. With a click, the familiar blue light comes on, warm and welcoming.

It’s starting to sink in that Steve will never touch Tony again. Never hold him in his arms or relive the memories as if they were happening again for the very first time. Rhodes and Pepper have all made certain of that.

But they can’t take the memories he has now. No one can ever tamper with the life Steve can live with Tony when he closes his eyes.

He can still hear him, as clear as ever, with the hum of the reactor in his ear and the soft beams of light cutting between his eyelashes.

_Such a beautiful life_.

_I love you, honey._

_Promise me you won’t let me go._

When Steve inevitably drifts off, Tony will be there waiting for him with a smile on his face and his arms wide open.

Some of it was real.

Some of it will always be real. 

**Author's Note:**

> Love you, my darling evil hippo. 
> 
> You can usually find me hanging around the [SteveTony Darkfest Server](https://discord.com/invite/X9xaRPT) or on [Tumblr](https://sapphic-futurist.tumblr.com/).


End file.
